Fantastic Bake Along – Chili Chocolate Bread

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I am so excited to be joining in for another Fantastic Bake Along. Thanks Tracy @It’s a T-Sweets Day for putting together another great bake! This month’s recipe came from Tina @Kristabella’s Hodgepodge and it really is FANTASTIC!!

I have to admit when I first saw this recipe I thought hmmmm I’m not sure about this. But then I read Tina’s post about how good it is and well Tina is awesome so what she bakes must be awesome too!!

Chili Chocolate Bread 3

While I was reading the recipe (here Chili/Chocolate Bread) I started to get more excited about baking it. I love making yeast bread and this was very similar to the enriched dough recipe that I have used for Babka Bread but with chili and chocolate chips instead of cinnamon and raisins.

Here’s trick that I used when I bake bread:

  • An hour or so before I’m ready to bake I preheat the oven to 200 degrees then shut it off. This makes for a nice warm place to proof the dough!

When I bake any kind of yeast dough I like to get the party started by dissolving the yeast in the warm milk or water and adding a teaspoon of honey or sugar. I do this because I buy yeast by the jar and even though I make a lot of dough, it’s a good test to see if my yeast is still fresh.

Chili Chocolate Bread

After sitting in the warm milk for about 10 minutes this gorgeous foam lets me know my yeast is still very active!!

I was lucky to be a day behind everyone else on this Fantastic Bake Along so I read all the posts to see the lovely loaves and get some insight into everyone’s bake.

I incorporated the chocolate chips into the mix while I was kneading the dough. I don’t have a bread machine or a nice mixer so all of my mixing and kneading is done by hand.

Everything was looking great! I love working with an enriched dough – it’s so smooth and pliable!!

After a little over an hour the rise wasn’t exactly what I hoped it would be. I was a little confused because I seldom have problems with dough rising. Now I usually make the standard flour, water, yeast, salt, and oil dough. I knew from experience that enriched dough can be a little trickier so I went back over what I had done in my head.

My yeast was fresh, I didn’t add too much salt……it must be the fat. I softened the butter and kneaded it into the dough before I added the chocolate chips. I remember thinking as I was kneading in the butter that I thought a whole stick seemed like a lot for one loaf of bread.

That’s because it was!!! The recipe didn’t call for 1 stick it called for 1/2 stick!!! Ooops apparently my butter soaked brain doesn’t know the difference between 1/4 cup and 1/4 pound of butter!! Now when I cook and bake I go a bit overboard with the butter – I mean I make Paula Dean’s recipes look like diet food sometimes. I always say there’s no such thing as too much butter.  That doesn’t apply to bread dough though – too much fat will wreck your dough rising. 😦

By the time I realized my mistake it was really too late to do anything about it. So I baked it and hoped for the best.

Chili Chocolate Bread 4

It was a little dense but not too bad. I really expected it to be much worse. It was actually very delicious! I had a piece as soon as it was cool enough to slice and was pleasantly surprised. The chili added such a nice warmth to the chocolate.

I would love to say that this was the first time that I accidentally used too much butter in a recipe but that would be a straight up lie. 😀

I will pay more attention the next time I use butter in bread dough because even though I got lucky this time I may not the next time.

fantastic bake along

Thanks for a really FANTASTIC Bake Along Tracy and thanks for a FANTASTIC recipe Tina!

Be sure to check out everyone’s Fantastic Bakes!

And thanks for reading!

~ Tami

30 responses to “Fantastic Bake Along – Chili Chocolate Bread”

  4. That darn butter! It didn’t rise much, but it still looks tasty:). I think this is a perfect example of what makes this Bake Along so fun. Sometimes we all have a mess up in the kitchen and it’s ok. I was chocolate finger girl while we could call you butter girl this month! Lol!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

    Liked by 2 people

    • It’s a great recipe Brenna. I think I prefer raisins and cinnamon in my bread but it was pretty good. I wish that I hadn’t used too much butter because it came out very dense for me. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

  7. OK Tami …
    there are three words that I would have said should never be used together: Chilli, Chocolate, and … Bread.

    The three words used apart are fine. Great. Even Groovy in some situations. But … Chilli Chocolate Bread is enough to send me running to the Chilli, Chocolate and Bread Police!

    Have to say though … it does look nice.
    But I just can’t. I simply just can’t. I might be ok with Chilli Bread. But chocolate … nooooooooo. Chocolate is food of the Angels. It’s something which should be available on prescription.
    “Take one Chocolate at 4pm every day, whilst in a room, all alone. Spend 15 minutes all alone after eating. Your day will become much brighter for this”.

    There. That’s the way it should be. 😀
    LOL – heaps of squidges ~ Cobs. xx

    Liked by 1 person

    • Oh dear Cobs I thought exactly the same thing! Plus it’s a yeast bread which seems like an odd place to put chocolate chips. It was very tasty though. I will probably just stick to raisins and cinnamon when I want a sweet bread in the future. The chocolate chips are much tastier in cookies and brownies!!
      ❤ ❤ ❤

      Liked by 1 person

  9. You slay girl! Another one doing it all by hand, very much appreciated. It’s okay to make mistakes though and it still looked damn good, I think i might pluck up the courage and join in on the next one. How do I do that lol?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Oh I would love for you to bake with us!!! All you need to do is watch for Tracy to post the next bake along and then just comment on the post that you want to join in too. She’ll add your blog link to the list of names. She posts on the second Tuesday of the month then we bake it whenever we want and post about it on the following Saturday or Sunday. It’s very casual and there’s been some really yummy recipes. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

  10. I really want to try this one – I love chilli chocolate! It’ll be a wee while before I have enough free time to make yeast bread though, so I shall just content myself with drooling over everyone else’s bakes.
    Mmmmmmm looks so good

    Liked by 1 person

    • It was tastier than I expected. Of course mine was a little dense because I used too much butter, but it was an interesting combination. I guess if you have a bread machine it’s not that time consuming, but I LOVE getting in there with my hands and feeling the dough while I’m mixing and kneading!! 😀

      Like

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