Sourdough Chocolate Bread | Cast Iron Baking | Cooking from FOOD STORAGE on the Homestead

it doesn’t get much better than doublechocolate sourdough bread and lucky foryou I’m willing to share I’m Melissafrom Melissa Kane Orascom and thepioneering today podcast and I can’twait to share with you some fabuloussourdough recipes that you can use foryour sourdough discard or just to createa delicious treat for your family one ofthe great things about this recipe isyou can pretty much make it anytime youwant because it doesn’t matter if thestarter is in an active state or hasjust been fed or not so I fed mysourdough starter last night because Iknew I needed to have enough of this tomake the recipe so we’re gonna startwith 1 cup of sourdough starter in thisday and age so many people don’t knowhow to cook from scratch let alone use asourdough starter but I’m telling you ifsourdough starter offers so manywonderful flavors to your baked goodsand then I know we’re gonna add 3/4 cupflour to the 1 cup of sourdough starternow I’m using fresh ground flour but youcan do this with regular all-purpose orjust store-bought flour my starter hasbeen fed with a mixture of hard whitewheat and a little bit of all purposebut for the majority of this recipe whenI’m doing things that are baked goodslike this which is a quick bread ormuffins or cakes I like to use theancient grained spelt so I’m going togrind up 3/4 cup flour of the spelt toadd to the starterwhile there’s much to be said forconvenience there’s also a lot to besaid for doing it yourself and using oldfashioned methods and having a homemilled fresh ground flour is one of themI’m also gonna go ahead and grind someflour and feed my starter to get itbuilt back up for more baking latertime to add the flour to our starter andanytime I am incorporating flour into adough I find that these doaa sweetiewell better than a spatula or a spoonnow I keep my sourdough starter on thethicker side I find that it justperforms better and is healthier thatway and it’s easier for the majority ofmy baking but it’s also gonna make it alittle bit tougher to incorporate thismuch flour into it which is why I liketo use this Danish dough whisk now ifyou don’t care that this recipe has allof the flour being fully fermented thenyou can just add it right now and goahead and bake up your recipe and makethe bread but if you are using sourdoughtoo early for met your grains and you’regonna want to mix in the starter withthis flour so that all of the greens inthe recipe are fully mixed together andthen you’re gonna want to let it sit inculture for at least eight hours usuallyovernight 8 to 12 hours so you can seeto let this sit it’s a really thickdough with all of the flour and thestarter I like to just kind of get thatall incorporated so that there’s no moredry flour left and then just cover thisand let it firm it until we’re ready tobake our bread before we mix up ourdough we want to get our loaf pangreased and ready so this is a standard9 by 5 loaf pan but it is cast-iron andI have to tell you that if you havenever baked bread and cast-iron oh myfriend you are missing out I will nevergo back to regular loaf pans ever againthe beauty of this you do need to havegrease it so I’m just using some coconutoil here and I’m gonna grease this butthe wonderful thing is every time youbake in this it becomes more and morenonstick and better seasoned what othertype of pan can you say every time I useit I’m actually in proving it and thereis just something about cast iron onceyou get one of these and you have bakedwith it I knowyou will agree with me the food tastesbetter and the texture of your bakedgoods is improved and comes out betteras well plus I love when I’m using thiscast iron loaf pan unlike other st.stainless steel or other different loafpans I’ve used in the past that weremade out of metal my food does not stickto this cast iron loaf pan I use castiron almost predominantly in my kitchenfor pretty much everything and I findthat one of the biggest reasons orbiggest failures people have with castiron is they’re just simply not excusingit seasoning it correctly so I’ll linkin the video I’ve got a video on how toseasoned cast iron skillets and dutchovens and it definitely applies to loafpans as well so now that we’ve got ourloaf pan all greased and ready to goit’s time to get our dough whipped up sohere I have got this sourdough starterand flour that we mixed up earlier sothis has just been sitting and it’sready to go but I want to cream togethermy sugar fats and liquids beforeincorporating the flour and sourdoughstarter go ahead and add in the butterand remember there is the printableversion of this recipe for you on theblog and I’ll link to that below andsugar I use organic raw sugar you canuse any sugar that you want in thisrecipe it only uses a half a cup but itis still a really sweet delicious spreadand then we’re gonna add in so I’ve gotbutter sugar and my eggs and we’re gonnacream all of those together I useroom-temperature eggs because these eggscome from the chickens and when I gathermy eggs from the coop I don’t store themin the fridge and room-temperature eggsusually are better for baking and doingcakes anyways so we’re gonna cream thesetogether I don’t know about you but Idon’t think there’s much more of aprettier sight than a mixing bowl and awooden spoon I’m nice and creamedtogether there now we’re gonna go aheadand add in the rest of our liquids tothis got homemade vanilla extracts Ionly use homemade extract I feel like ithas so much more flavor thanstore-bought and it’s so easy tomake I do have a tutorial and recipe onthis one so I’ll link to it as well I’mgoing to do two teaspoons of vanillaextract and then I’m going to be addingin one cup of apple sauce I love beingable to use the food that we’ve grownand preserved and put up on thehomestead in my baked goods in yearround you can use zucchini I’ve alreadywent through all the zucchini that wehave preserved but using pureed pumpkinor apple sauce is a great way to addextra moisture to your bread and thisnaturally sweetened zipI don’t usually add much sugar at all tomy homemade apple sauce the apples aresweet enough but this adds just a littlebit more sweetness to the bread andallows me to use less sugar so I’m justgoing to incorporate that so now it’stime to add in our flour and sourdoughstarter as well as our cocoa powderbecause this is a double chocolaterecipe I just want to incorporate thecocoa powder and the starter with theliquids I don’t want to beat this oroverwork it because then you can getlarge air pockets and the texture ofyour dough the texture of your bread isnot going to be as good so I just havethis to the point where it’sincorporated so we’re gonna stop and nowwe’re gonna mix in almost all with thechocolate chips I like to reserve a fewto sprinkle on top of the loaf or rightat the end so we’re gonna put in themajority of these just reserving a fewfor the top and when you’re working withsourdough because I’m not letting thesourdough actually be the leaveningagent on a quick bread you don’t let itsit in rice so I am gonna be adding inmy baking powder in my baking soda butbecause sourdough is naturally acidicand our baking soda and the bakingpowder to a degree are going to react tothat you put it in at the very endnot when you’re actually mixing in yourdry ingredients because as soon as thishits this it’s gonna begin to react andI want it to be rising in the oven notwhen it’s just sitting in the doughbeing mixed and thenpoured into your loaf pan so this goesin at the very end and then we’re justgoing to fold this together now if mydough feels a little bit too thick Ihave a little bit of coffee here andcoffee heightens the flavor of chocolateyou don’t end up tasting the coffee inthe end recipe but it’s kind of thesecret weapon to getting a deliciouscoffee flavor and chocolate baked goodsso I’m going to add just a little bit tothis dough it’s just a little bit thickright before I pour it in this issomething you need to watch when you’reworking with fresh ground flour versusregular store-bought flour fresh groundflour will absorb moisture differentlythan all-purpose flour and you can getmy guide to baking with fresh flour overat the blog I’ll link to it in the videodescription beneath this video and youcan go and check that outthere we go I don’t want to over mixthat so we’ve just got everythingcombined and now we’re going to go aheadand put it into our loaf pan and thenI’m just going to smooth this out evenlyinto our pan and I want to make sure youget every little last bit in there I’mgoing to go ahead and use this spatulajust to finish it off and now ourremainder chocolate chips we’re justgoing to go ahead and sprinkle on top ofthe loaf and into the oven it goes so anhour later here is our bread now youwant to let your quick bread cool in thepan for about 20 minutes before tryingto remove it so that the structure isset and it doesn’t fall out when youtake it from the pan and one of the waysto tell besides putting a toothpick inthe center and pulling out that it’sclean is with the cast-iron pan thebread will begin to pull away from theedgesof the pan so you kind of have two tipsto know if it’s ready to pull out of theoven or not one of the best ways to keepyour sourdough starter active and ingood shape is to use it and to feed itoften now if you want more on learninghow to start and make your own sourdoughstarter I have a free video series thatyou are going to want to get that walksyou through all the aspects of whysourdough is so much healthier for usand our digestive system than usingregular yeast and includes how to makeit with fresh ground flour regularall-purpose from the store and evengluten free and ancient grain I’m cornwith some of my favorite recipes so it’sa four-part free video series I got thelink here on the screen for you as wellas in the video description below atMelissa cane Orascom forward slash learnsourdough I like to keep my sourdoughstarter as I shared especially whenusing fresh ground flour on the thickerside so I don’t let it become reallyrunny so it has a little bit higherratio of flour than it does to water mysincere hope is that more and morekitchens will return to these oldtraditional methods and old fashionedsourdough starters won’t be consideredold fashioned anymore but the norm inevery kitchenso it’s been cooling for 20 minutes andI always just like to take this is abutter knife so it doesn’t scratch mypan at all and just kind of loosen uprun it along the edges there between thebread and the pan before turning it outto let it finish coolly with the castiron retaining heat so well that’s whyit’s excellent for cooking and bakingbut I only let it cool in the pan forabout 20 minutes because there is thatresidue all heat that’s going tocontinue to cook it and can come createa dry loaf if you leave it in too longthere’s something extremely satisfyingwhen you pull that loaf pan away andyour bread comes out perfectly that’ssomething you just don’t get when youbuy things pre-made or from the storeand then for this to finish cooling soit doesn’t get all the lines up there onthe top just kind of tip that there onits side and then I’ll let this coolfully before we try and slice it openthe best part of baking is definitelygoing to eat it[Music]