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