No sooner asked than answered! Just for fun (and not expecting to find any real, serious recipes for same), I went a-Googling for Chocolate Bread. And found a beautiful 5-star loaf that can be made sweet or swavoury!
And judging by the ingredients list, it’ll be absolutely perfect for bringing Hershey’s ‘prank’ PB&J Sandwich to life! Not to mention a bunch of other possibilities that are suggesting themselves as I write this…
Simple recipe…
If you couldn’t clearly smell the chocolate as soon as the loaf comes out of the oven, you might mistake this bread – by appearance – as a classic Dark Rye. The texture and colour are perfect.
To add to it’s attractiveness – even to the seldom- or non-baker – this is a quick, no-knead recipe. It calls for a minimum of ingredients and prep time is estimated at just 5 min., followed by a bake time of about 45 minutes.
The trick is, you need to leave the dough to rise – without disturbing it – for 3 to 5 hours, before sub-jecting it to a two-part baking process, the first half of which involves steaming the loaf to make sure it rises perfectly.
Tips…
DO make this slightly off-beat yeast bread EXACTLY according to the recipe the first few times you attempt it. After you’re familiar with the steaming process, you can let your hair down a little maybe adapt the recipe to other breads based on non-standard flavours and heavier ingredients, such as cocoa powder.
DO add the ‘optional’ sugar, to enhance the sweet, desserty nature of this loaf. You might want to leave the sugar out, if you were making what might more correctly be called a Cocoa Bread for a ‘swavoury’ application.
DO let this bread cool to room temperature before attempting to build your first Chocolate PB&J sandwich. Warm from the oven, it will melt the PB and J, which will sink into the bread, making it mushy. Which in turn may also result in the sammy falling apart in your hands. Yuk…
The recipe contributor suggests you make a double batch. Because everybody who even smells it – let alone tastes it – will want seconds or even thirds.
Some other applications:
There’s a ‘serving suggestion’ photo included in the original recipe post that appears to approve slathering this rich, chocolatey, but not-too-sweet loaf with Nutella. And what a Fluffernutter it would make!
Plain butter on the the interior face of one slice of the bread, plus any fruit spread on the other would make that simple concept extra-special.
Chocolate and thiny-sliced strawberries being such bosom flavour buddies, I can foresee that being a great combo. Or sliced bananas. Both fruits accompanied by a thin spread of peanut butter to stick them together.
I’ve mentioned my go-to Peanut Butter & Lettuce sandwich before in this space. But making it with lightly-toasted Chocolate Bread might just elevate it into the Sandwich Hall Of Fame!
My take
And that’s just a sampling of what you could do with this stuff…
Have fun, and feed your chocolate craving with a minimum of guilt and calories!
~ Maggie J.