Jennine Walker’s double chocolate sourdough

Jennine told me that this recipe was inspired by a chocolate baguette she found in a Boulogne-sur-Mer bakery one rainy spring day on a weekend trip to France. After several attempts to recreate this at home, she came up with this recipe, which she says is pretty close to how she remembers the flavour, if not the texture.

Ingredients

Makes: 1 large loaf

300g/10½oz sourdough starter*
200g/7oz white bread flour
160g/5¾oz water
40g/1½oz cocoa powder
15g/1 tbsp honey
6g/1 tsp fine/table salt
100g/3½oz dark chocolate chips

* eg 100% hydration (1:1 flour/water ratio) white wheat flour starter

Method

1. Mix the sourdough starter, flour and water together thoroughly, cover and leave at room temperature for 12 hours (typically overnight).
2. Add the cocoa powder, honey and salt and mix well. Cover and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
3. Knead the dough for around 10–15 seconds, cover and leave to rest for 10–15 minutes. Repeat this knead/rest process until you have a smooth, stretchy, silky dough.
4. Add the chocolate chips and work the dough until they are evenly distributed. Cover and leave the dough to prove for 1 hour, giving it a fold after 30 minutes.
5. Dust a proving basket well with flour. Shape the dough to fit, and put it in the basket, seam-side up. Cover and leave to prove at room temperature for 1–2 hours until doubled in size and the dough doesn’t spring back when pressed gently.
6. Heat the oven to 250°C/230°C fan/480°F/gas 9+, or as high as it will go, with a baking stone or baking sheet in place. Tip the dough out onto a well-floured peel, slash the top and slide it onto the baking stone.
7. Turn the oven down immediately to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/gas 6 and bake for 35–45 minutes, turning the loaf round in the oven after 15 minutes to ensure even baking, and cover the top with a sheet of kitchen foil if it is browning too quickly.

About the baker

Jennine Walker and Claudia Ehmke have been baking together in their home in Hackney, London, for the past three years, making it up as they go along, with a bit of help from a course at the E5 Bakehouse and a lot of inspiration from travelling and foraging. They love taking their loaves out for a walk and picnic in the countryside, as well as sharing them with friends and family.

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Taken from Slow Dough: Real Bread © 2016 Chris Young / Nourish Books. Commissioned photography © Victoria Harley.

Reproduction prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder.

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