Wednesday 5 December 2007

Mocha Loaf

What happens when you add some cocoa powder, instant coffee and some nutella spread to a basic bread recipe? Well, you simply get a loaf of Mocha Bread!

Here's the description of the loaf taken from the cookbook which I got the recipe:
'An irresistible cross between a loaf and a cake, the coffee and chocolate intertwined in the background, the sweetness light. It makes a kind of French-style breakfast bread, a chocolate croissant substitute, and may be eaten plain or buttered and topped with soft cream cheese.'

I am quite certain, after reading it, any bread lovers like me could hardly wait to lay their hands on these. Although I have to declare that I really couldn't taste any traces of 'mocha' in the loaf I baked ;)

As a result of not greasing my pullman tin properly, the entire loaf got stuck in the tin. I had to use a palette knife to go over the sides a few times before this stubborn loaf agreed to get out. Upon my 'rough handling', the exterior of the loaf was very badly 'bruised" ;)


Don't you think that this bread looks extremely hard and crispy, as though it just jumped off from a bread toaster?? Hmmm...don't be misled by the image you see...believe it or not, the bread was actually very soft when this photo was taken! This recipe is meant to be made using a bread machine. If you have a bread machine, you will only need to spend less than 10mins of your time to measure and put in the ingredients. In 3 hours time, you will able to enjoy this freshly baked loaf. I would love to let my machine to do the entire job, but I thought I should make a smaller loaf instead, as I do not like to keep my homemade bread for more than 2 nights. I used 2/3 the amount of the original recipe, got the machine to do the kneading (for 30mins) followed by the usual bread-making ritual: rise, roll, shape, 2nd proof and finally bake in my oven. I didn't want to use the bread machine to do the baking as I was a little wary that the bread will be overly browned due to the smaller loaf size.

Since the lighting condition was very favourable when I took these photos, I shoved my camera lens as close to the subject as possible...just to see whether it is capable of producing good 'extreme' close-ups . I guess the following few compositions were the closest my camera could manage before the images went blur!

My boy thought these doughs looked like knuckles?! You may think I am crazy, but when I saw these nicely proven doughs, my heart actually skipped a little!! Well, to me, it meant that the loaf would turn out great ;D


I noticed that if I were to slice my bread at different orientations (eg top-down vs side-way), the crumbs looked rather different! You can see the difference by comparing the above image with the one below...or was it got to do with the haphazard way I was slice it??


This slice certainly looks more like a chocolate cake than a bread?



The bread turned out to be a little bitter to my liking...likely due to the instant coffee I used. The texture was superb when freshly baked...very soft and light. However, as there is no egg or butter used in this recipe, the bread 'aged' quite fast overnight. By the next morning, it became a little heavy and dense. After toasting, it became softer and tasted great especially after I slapped on a thick layer of nutella over it! Yum!


Ingredients:

original recipe for a medium loaf:
300ml(1 & 3/8 cups) water
1 tablespoon oil
450g (3 cups) bread flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons light brown soft sugar
1 tablespoon nutella spread
2 tablespoons dried skimmed milk powder
1 & 1/2 teaspoons instant or fast-acting dried yeast

I reduced the portion for a smaller loaf:
200ml water
2 teaspoons oil
300g bread flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
2 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons light brown soft sugar
2 teaspoons nutella spread
2 teaspoons dried skimmed milk powder
1 teaspoon instant or fast-acting dried yeast


Method:

By bread machine:

  1. Pour the water into the breadmaker bucket. Add in oil and half the flour. Sprinkle with cocoa powder, coffee, salt and sugar.
  2. Add the nutella spread and dried milk powder. Cover with the remaining flour.
  3. With a finger, make a small indent in the centre of the flour, and place the yeast in the indent.
  4. Fit the bucket into the breadmaker, and set to either Sweet or Basic white programme. Select the desired colour of the crust.
  5. When the cycle completes, carefully shake the loaf out of the bucket and let it stand the right way up. If desired, brush with glaze. Leave the loaf to cool for at least an hour before cutting and remove the blade/paddle if necessary.

How I did it:

  1. Pour the water into the breadmaker bucket. Add in oil and half the flour. Sprinkle with cocoa powder, coffee, salt and sugar.
  2. Add the nutella spread and dried milk powder. Cover with the remaining flour.
  3. With a finger, make a small indent in the centre of the flour, and place the yeast in the indent.
  4. Fit the bucket into the breadmaker, and set to Dough function.
  5. When the Kneading completes, remove dough from the bread pan, let it rise in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Let rise for 1~ 1hr 30mins or until the dough double in bulk.
  6. Remove dough and punch out the gas. Divide dough into 3 equal portion. Roll and shape into balls. Let rest for 10 mins. On a lightly floured surface, flatten one dough and roll out into a longish shape. Roll up the dough swiss-roll style. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
  7. Flatten the rolled-up dough and roll out again into a long rectangular shape. Roll up tightly, and make as many rolls you can, swiss-roll style for the second time. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
  8. Place doughs in a lightly greased bread tin/pan. Let the doughs proof for the second time, until it fills up 80% of the tin/pan, about 1hr. Cover with cling wrap.
  9. If using a pullman tin, cover the lid before baking. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180 ~ 190 deg C for 30 to 35mins.
  10. Unmould the bread immediately after removing from the oven. Let cool completely before slicing.

    Recipe source: adapted from The Complete Bread Machine Cookbook by Sonia Allison

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your bread looks yummy! Your bakes look tempting!

Anonymous said...

I have not baked bread in what seems like forever. You have definitely given me some ideas

Aimei said...

Hi Happy Homebaker, Your bread looks healthy and delicious without butter and egg, and with my favourite flavour..chocolate! Can I make this by hand since i do not have bread machine?

InspiredMumof2 said...

The doughs look great for pictures, excellent shot. What camera are you using? I am thinking of getting a bread machine too. Any recommendation which brand is good?:-)

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi my home kitchen, thanks!

Hi AnOldieButAGoodie, thanks for dropping by :) Glad to hear that this bread has 'tickled' you to revisit bread-making!

Aimei, I'm sure you can make this by bread. The only think is, there is nutella, oil etc in the ingredients...if u don't like the sticky, oily feeling, you may want to use a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients into a dough, before kneading by hand :)

Hi Inspiredmumof2, I am using a Cannon Powershot G3, 4mega pixel, been using it for the last 4 yrs. I am sorry I wont be able to recommend any bread machine...as I didn't do any prior research before getting mine! I got mine from Carrefour, Bluesky, (about S$70)...it's their housebrand, very basic functions, nothing fancy, but has served it's purpose since I bought it.

Mandy said...

nothing beats a homemade bread! I wanted to make bread but keep putting off because of the kneading required. I shall just move next to your house :D

Happy Homebaker said...

Mandy, that will be great! I can have dinner at your place...love all the dishes you made :)

Mer said...

This bread looks great and sounds delicious!

Anonymous said...

Happy Homebaker,ur chocolate loaf reali look tempting..last wk i tried to bake a bread which i get the recipe from a recipe book but failed two times.reali sad.mayb this time i should follow ur recipe.

but i dont have a bread machine.i trying on a cake mixer. should i put all the dry ingredients n pour in all the liquid ingredients n knead it till smooth?

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Anonymous, I have not tried using a mixer to knead the bread. However, I would think you could do as what you have in mind...ie, add the dry ingredients then the wet ingredients. You will have to use a dough hook for the kneading. Hope this helps :)

Anonymous said...

Tq Happy Homebaker for ur guidance.i will try it..tq..

InspiredMumof2 said...

Thanks Happy homebaker, will check the baking machine out.

Anonymous said...

You are awesome! you should open a pastry shop. ^^

Anonymous said...

Hi HHB

I tried the Mocha loaf and it taste simply wonderful! We jus could not wait/keep for breakfast. Gobble up more than 1/2 loaf straigh after dinner and is asking me to make another loaf for breakfast tomorrow!

The only bottle of coffee granules I had expired so I replace coffee granules, milk powder and water with 300ml of Meiji coffee flavour milk and reduce the sugar to 2.5tablespoon (cos I remember you mentioned the bread may brown faster with the extra sugar). The bread is so soft.

Thanks for the wonderful recipe!

By the way, Do we need to sift the bread flour?

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Fion, glad to hear that you enjoy the bread so much :) Did you get the bread machine to bake the loaf? If yes, it is certainly a good and easy recipe!
So far I have never sift bread flour, just measure and dump it into the bread pan ;')

Anonymous said...

i love you're blog,I hope you try croissant bread.

Anonymous said...

Hi HHB, it is me again, HL, who bought the bread machine just days ago and baked the hokkaido bread that turned out dense but good. I just baked this loaf. The texture turned out to be great. Soft like cake and not dense as I had expected. I used really warm water this time, so I guess it makes a difference. However, too bad, I misread the quantity of salt and used tbsp instead of tsp. The bread is too salty for human consumption! I shall try the same recipe but omit the cocoa powder and coffee as I also dislike the the bitter and sour after taste of the bread. I will preset the bread machine so it bakes early tomorrow morning. Thanks again for your wonderful blog and response to my previous comment. BTW, I found out you come to the Bay Area once in a while. I live in San Jose!

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi HL, just remember that the amount of salt to be used in any baking, be it bread or cake, won't be more than a tablespoon, and you will not make the mistake again :) I hope you have a great loaf! May I recommend that you try the other recipe "Crunchy Peanut Butter Bread"...most people who tried it have given good reviews. If you like soft bread, you can try the "Milk Loaf".
Yes, I visit the Bay Area quite often...in fact we always spend our time at Sunnyvale...which is just a stone throw away :) Now you make me crave for Krispy Kreme, Popeye chicken, In & Out burgers; and not forgetting supermarts such as Whole Food, Trader Joes! and the food outlets at Cupertino and Mountain View!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. I will remember that for the rest of my life. No more salty bread. Ha! May I ask you a question. I just baked the raisin loaf following Angie's simple raisin loaf recipe. It turned out really really yummy. Soft and the taste is just right. But the size is too small. How would you convert the recipe so I can make at least a 1.5 lbs loaf which I think is about the size of your hokkaido milk loaf? Just like you, I have two boys to feed at home. :) I have already made the milk loaf. I finished eating the last two slices this morning. I pan fried them with some butter and they reminded me of the big round "huat kuih" my mom used to buy and pan fried the same way. I have not had that for at least 10 years! I will definitely bake the milk loaf again and again as my boys love it. I will not be able to try the peanut butter one because my younger one is allergic to peanut. If there is any other bread recipes you recommend, please do share it with me. Next time you come to the states, you have to let me know. I would love to meet you in person and take you out to eat. I will see if I can find your email address on your blog so I can email you to introduce myself. I really love your blog and the gorgeous pictures you took! You are so humble, cheerful and sweet. Definitely a friend that everyone will love to have!

Anonymous said...

Oh, actually I have not tried the "milk loaf". I will give it a try this weekend as I am planning to make "kaya", which I am will sure go well with it. Happy New Year by the way.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi HL, you are making me blush with your kind words :D
I tried making kaya once but failed miserably :'(
As I do not know which Angie's recipe you are referring to, may be you can double the portion? Will it be too much? If not you can try multiply 1.5 times to each of the ingredients. Hope this helps :)

Anonymous said...

I just made the "kaya" in the microwave and it turned out really good. It took only about 30 minutes of microwaving. If you like, I can share what I did with you.