Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Bread! (CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED)
Thanksgiving has come and gone too quickly yet again. We have finished eating our Thanksgiving Leftovers Torta, but we’ll continue to hold on to our reasons to stop and give thanks, especially as the holiday madness begins in earnest. We’ve come up with a great way to celebrate the season with you–and they don’t involve turkey or long lines of shoppers–a decadent chocolate bread, laced with coffee, cardamom, and more chocolate!
Let’s start with the bread. The recipe is our Chocolate Espresso Whole Wheat Bread recipe, which comes from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day, but tweaked just a bit, with a swirl of cardamom sugar and chocolate chunks. The combination of chocolate, cardamom, and coffee is quite a treat; the flavors compliment each other beautifully. This bread is rich and dreamy, but the dough is still made with whole wheat flour and honey, adding lots of flavor with less fat than our regular brioche, for example. There is, of course, the coffee icing that covers the top, an added little indulgence for the Holidays.
Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (or two packets)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
1 cup strong brewed coffee, lukewarm
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
4 large eggs
1/2 cup neutral-flavored oil
3/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine
Whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a 5 quart bowl, or other lidded food container. Combine the liquid ingredients and mix with the dry ingredients without kneading.
The dough will be loose, but will firm up when chilled. Don’t try to use it without chilling at least 2 hours.
Cover the dough, and allow to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses, about 2 hours. Refrigerate and use over the next 5 days.
On baking day, grease a 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch nonstick loaf pan. Cut off a 2-pound piece of dough and shape into a ball. Generously flour your work surface, and roll the dough into a 1/4 inch rectangle, dusting with flour as needed. Brush the surface of the dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter, and sprinkle the cardamom sugar mixture evenly over the butter. Then sprinkle the chopped chocolate over the sugar mixture. Roll the dough into a cylinder, and pinch the seams shut. Place in the prepared loaf pan, and allow to rest for about an hour and 45 minutes, covered loosely with plastic wrap. (For detailed instructions on rolling out, sprinkling, and rolling up, see Zoe’s post here).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread for 45-50 minutes, until firm. Remove the bread from the pan and drizzle with the coffee icing (recipe follows). Allow to cool before slicing and eating.
Coffee Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons strong coffee
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt together. Add coffee one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
The blending of chocolate, cardamom, and coffee in this luscious loaf is too yumful to pass up! Thank you for sharing the recipe…cheers!
I will definitely be using your recipes…if only because I have a constant cycle of loaves going all the time! I’ll probably work up something special for Christmas though.
I’ve been making my own bread for about two years now and it always seemed complicated and the results were sometimes disappointing. Not to mention, I have never found the perfect “go to” recipe. When things get hairy around my house with 2 small children, bread just doesn’t get baked. I just discovered your website and checked out one of your books at the library today. I have a loaf in the oven now. Thanks for taking the mystery and hassle out of great bread. I would love a copy of your books.
This is beautiful! I can’t wait to make it!
-hypalus
I will surely try this recipe!I have been making chocolate pumpkin bread way too much!
Wow this looks great! Would love to get my hands on those books ;0) Awesome give away!
I will definitely be making this!
Looks delicious!
I just started baking my own bread a few weeks ago, and my family and I have really enjoyed it. I heard about your books and method today, and I think it would definitely streamline my day. This recipe looks delicious – I will definitely have to try it out at our upcoming Christmas party. Thanks for sharing!
Yum! This looks delicious!! I am the designated bread-maker of the family, so I will probably be making more dinner rolls.
Never tried cardamom before, but the loaf looks fantastic!!!
I started baking bread a few months ago after I retired and was looking for things to keep me bus. This recipe sounds wonderful, I will certainly try it. Have everything in the pantry except the wheat gluten.
Beautiful bread! I love all things cardamom, so I’ll be making this one for sure! I’m a big fan of Artisan Bread in 5, and so is my family!
Love this idea and I think my daughters would eat it up! I came here because a comment made me think of you: St. Nicholas Day is tomorrow, and I just read that in France, they make mannala, a brioche shaped like St. Nicholas. (Even though I know it is outside your faith tradition, I thought it might be something that you’d whip up and post with the season– love your ever-in-season creativity.) I’d be very happy to receive the set of three books. I’ve been baking with AB5 for several years, but we are too poor right now to buy the other books, so I modify from that to make things healthier.
I have a dough bucket and make my own bread thanks to 5 minutes. Now, I’ve got my friends hooked too! My kids help me with the mixing and fight over who gets the first piece out of the oven on baking day. Thanks for demystifying the process–would love all the books!
Wow! That bread looks wonderful…mmmmmm
I love cardamom. I hope to make this in the very near future, as it looks delicious.
I have been baking bread for a few years using recipes in your first book. I’ve borrowed the other two books from the library and love them too. It would be great to win them!
I adore your books and will be making the cinnamon raisin bagels for sure for Christmas morning!
The bread looks amazing.
Wow! This bread looks amazing. Definitely going to show this recipe to my wife, the baker in the family.
I love your books. I have not bought bread in almost two years because your approach makes it so easy and cheap to have awesome bread all time.
This recipe looks great.
This looks so good…I have a batch of the olive oil dough going, but may need to try this one out!
Yummy – chocolate, cardamom and coffee, one can’t possibly lose with that combo! I’ve been baking your bread for a while now and have checked out the books at the library so often, that they’d probably be grateful if I had my own set 😉
Thanks for the chance.
I saw your bread on pinterest and got your books from the library. They are on my Christmas wish list. I hope I win them!
My father baked your bread regularly and used to tell his children how easy it was (we already knew how delicious it was!) It wasn’t until he passed away and my mother gave me his/your cookbook that I learned just how easy it was to have home baked bread in my own kitchen. I’ve tried several recipes and follow your blog…My all time favorite is for the caramel rolls we eat regularly…yum yum yum! Thanks for the new recipe, I’ll be making this for Christmas 🙂
I can’t wait to try this recipe, three of my favorite flavors! I just mixed up a batch of bread to use for the holidays.
Love chocolate but hate coffee. I’m making mini loaves of brioche for my gift exchange of favorite things. Your breads are fantastic! Thank you!
I would love this book set. Merry Christmas to me!
I’ll definitely be using some of your recipes this holiday season, as well as am planning on buying some related equipment for Christmas gifts. So far I’ve stuck with the basic bread recipes, but the photos and recipe for this loaf is inspiring me to get out the chocolate!
I saw a bread teddy bear at a bakery, yesterday. Am thinking of using a couple of pounds of one of your richer doughs to try my hand at making my owm teddy bear for Christmas dinner. Would love to see a version from you! Thanks for all of the delicious fun you have given our family and friends.
How wonderful. I would love to win the lovely book set from you. Can’t wait to bake along!
amy [at] utry [dot] it
What lovely bread. Thanks for the giveaway!
This looks fantastic! I have never tried making refrigerator bread before. I will definitely be tying this recipe soon!
wow how awesome would love the books
I was so impressed with your first book that I gave 2 classes/demonstrations at my local library that has a full kitchen for such purposes. It was well attended and the library actually gave the book as drawing prizes.
Just this week I went to library book club pitch in and made the thanksgiving torta. It came out as beautiful as your picture and tasted wonderful.
My whole town is getting more interested in bread baking as a result of you two.
Thanks for the continued recipe posts. I look forward to trying the chocolate bread for Christmas holiday get togethers.
Hi! Home baked bread make any day a very special day! The taste and aroma of home baked bread signifies true meaning of love!
Thanks for having a giveaway!
I haven’t bought bread in almost three years — since I got your first book. It’s so much fun! I’ll be giving some of your books as Christmas gifts this year. Thanks for posting this yummy recipe.
This looks great. I’m going to try it for a treat during our family cookie baking event this weekend.
I can’t wait to try this bread. I have used Leahys pizza recipe and am excited to try the bread recipes. Thanks for making my life easier.
Ohhh that bread looks heavenly! I love making bread and can’t wait to try it.
Thanks so much for doing this giveaway too. 🙂
That loaf looks amazing and combines all 3 of my favorite flavors! I’ll be trying that soon…
My son-in -law loves double chocolate,coffee, and healthy! I want to mail a loaf of this delicious looking bread to him in Idaho. I think it will work to package the icing separately, with instructions to warm the bread slightly before drizzling the icing. What do you think? Thanks for yeast recipes that the whole family, as well as the whole neighborhood enjoys.
I can’t wait to try this bread! It looks very yummy 🙂 My family and I have been making one of the basic boule bread for a while now and we love it! Thanks!
Must make right now! Chores can wait…right?
Your Challah bread recipe saved my Thanksgiving dinner! I was determined to make Grandma’s butterhorn roll recipe, but –yikes!- I slept in Thanksgiving morning! I threw together a batch of your Challah bread and shaped it into rolls. It was a hit! And my Thanksgiving morning was not so hectic.
Challah makes the perfect Runza bread. Your recipe has turned Runza day into Runza evening… and I make them a lot more often now. My little boys and dinner guests all love the creations I make from your book (Artisan Bread)! I can’t wait to try Healthy Bread in 5. Thank you for developing these recipes/books!
This bread looks so yummy! I always turn to your olive bread dough recipe for pizzas! Looks like I am going to have pizza for dinner tonight.
Made this! loved it…ate way too much in one sitting.
Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!
I can’t wait to try this recipe. I think that they would make great Christmas gifts for my neighbors if I bake them in mini loaf pans.