Chocolate Marble Bread II

Made this strange, almost alien looking loaf of bread this afternoon. This is my 3rd attempt on a Chocolate Marble Bread. I still finds it very tricky to roll out the dough without having the chocolate paste oozing out. I used the Hokkaido Milky Loaf recipe to make the bread dough as I need to use up some leftover whipping cream. I followed the rolling and folding method as shown here (I don't understand a single word in this wesbsite though) but instead of slicing the dough into short cylinders, I cut them into 4 long ones and stack them length wise, two on top and two below. I came across this shaping method when I was browsing some Chinese cookbooks at a bookstore yesterday.


It's obvious that I didn't do a good job in rolling out the dough...they were in various sizes. I was quite certain that I wouldn't be able to get the nice swirls as the one in the cookbook.

While I was preparing to make the chocolate paste, my little one offered his assistance. I had to decline as it involved mainly stirring the paste over the stove. He was very disappointed, but ran off to play on his own. His brother was down with a flu (again!) and was resting. When he saw me kneading the dough (I made the bread by hand), he came along and asked whether he could help me with it. Although I would rather not have him around while I am making bread, I simply couldn't say no, especially after I saw the great enthusiasm in his eyes.



I got him to wash his hands, but I didn't notice that his fingers were still covered with ink stains until he started kneading away! I had to keep my fingers crossed that no one would suffer from any stomach upset after eating this bread ;)

It's quite amazing how kids can pick up things so fast. I didn't teach him or show him on purpose how to go about kneading the dough...but he was able to mimic the action quite well. We took turns to knead the dough until it was fully developed. I managed to take a short video clip of him in action, and it's going to go under our collections of home videos! Do take note that this is not a demo on kneading :)






The dough rise, shaped, proofed and was finally baked. The entire process took about 4 hrs. Despite the ugly exterior, the cross section of the loaf didn't look too bad, although I must say, the swirls were not too distinctive.


Once the bread was cooled off, my boy requested for a small piece to try. After the first bite, he asked for a whole slice. He ate it with great gusto...enjoying his fruit of labour!


Ingredients:
(makes one loaf)

chocolate paste
20g cake flour
50g sugar
1 egg white
80ml milk (warmed)
18g cocoa powder
10g butter

bread dough
270g bread flour
30g cake flour
5g active dry yeast
15g milk powder
40g caster sugar
4.5g (3/4 teaspoon) salt
125g fresh milk
Half an egg
75g whipping cream (heavy cream)

Method:

chocolate sheet

1. Mix sugar and cake flour into the egg white until smooth.
2. Place milk in a saucepan and heat till just simmering.
3. Add coca powder into the milk and stir till cocoa powder is incorporated into milk.
4. Add egg white mixture into the cocoa mixture and stir over low fire till mixture thickens and form a thick lump. (please refer to this site for the texture of the finished chocolate paste)
5. Add in butter and stir till incorporated.
6. Leave to cool. Place in a plastic bag and roll into a square (about 14cm x 14cm). Keep refrigerated before use.

bread dough

1. Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Mix the ingredients with hand. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Pour the lightly beaten egg, milk and whipping cream into the well. Mix the ingredients to form a soft dough.
2. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead for about 15 ~ 20mins until the dough becomes smooth, elastic and non-sticky.
3. Smooth the dough into a round ball. Let it rise in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Let dough rise for 60mins or until it double in bulk.
4. Remove dough and punch out the gas. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll out the dough into a rectangle (about 45cm x 20cm). Place the chocolate sheet on the middle of the dough. Wrap both ends of the dough over to cover the chocolate sheet completely. Take note that the dough should be rolled long enough for both sides to fold over the chocolate sheet. Seal the edges tightly. The dough should now be about 15cm x 20cm.
5. Roll dough from centre to the edges to form a long rectangle (about 45cm x 20cm). Do this gently to prevent the chocolate paste from oozing out. Fold the dough into 3 folds.
6. Repeat step 5 above.
7. Finally, roll dough to about 40cm x 18cm. Cut into 4 individual rectangles (each about 10cm x 18cm). Note that the 18cm length is the length of my loaf tin, you may adjust according to the length of your pan. Roll up the each dough tightly, swiss-roll style, to form a roll with a length of 18cm. Place two dough (length wise) in a lightly greased loaf pan and stack on the other two rolls. Let proof for another 1 hour or until the dough rise to about 80% of the loaf pan. Cover with the lid (for a pullman tin).
8. Preheat oven to 200 degC but bake at 180 degC for about 35- 40 minutes. Remove from oven and unmould immediately. Let the loaf cool off before slicing.