Saturday, March 22, 2008

Chocolate er... Swirl Bread?

The smell of chocolate fills the air, lovely… however I’m praying that the bread will turn out alright. I’m not just referring to the taste as I know it will taste fine, it’s the texture I’m referring to. See the photos below and you’ll see why and where I'd gone wrong …



Alright, it was supposed to be Florence's chocolate wassant, I had followed the recipe exactly... except that I had under-cooked the chocolate paste. I know now it's supposed to be dry or lumpy. Mine was thick but rather runny. I thought it would harden in the fridge, well, it didn't. I have some more paste left, wonder what I'll do with it, hmmm. Back to my harrowing experience with the chocolate paste.

Thanks to rei, she gave me a lot of tips via msn. I should have changed strategy when I found that the paste was still runny even after spending 30 mins in the freezer. Should have switched to buns but I had already rolled the dough into one fairly large square. Besides, the chocolate paste was already all over the dough.

As I was rolling the dough initially, I remembered what rei had told me earlier about it not being necessary to “punch” the dough – there were lots of air pockets! When I rolled over them, I could hear (and feel) them bursting, so interesting. Anyway, I tried to wrap the chocolate paste inside the dough, it was still ok until I started to roll to flatten the dough. It broke and chocolate oozed out! It was then that I knew it was a gone case. I quickly went on to msn to see if rei was online and she was! After briefly telling her, she told me that since I had done second proofing I had not much choice but to bake it.

So, I put it into the oven and it rose to a monstrous loaf! But it didn't look half as bad as I had imagined, thank God! Can you imagine, I had started out with Florence’s chocolate wassant recipe, then got lazy and changed my mind? I decided to make a chocolate swirl bread like HHB’s and this is the result. Disaster or success, you be the judge… gosh, the smell was heavenly! (when I was typing this post). This was how the loaf looked when I unmoulded it.



I went out after removing the loaf from the pan. When I came back some 3 hours later, I cut the loaf. I was amazed at my own patience actually. This was what I saw, and it tasted quite good really :) I think I will give it another try *thumbs up*

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The chocolate loaf looks good!

KWF said...

yuri, I remembered my first chocolate swirl bread also ended up in a big mess!

Yuri said...

Thanks bernice, it tasted quite good actually :P still soft on day 2.

wf, i recall reading about your experience. Guess we learn through mistakes...

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Yuri...my first attempt on the chocolate swirl bread was also in a big mess! The trick is to cook the chocolate paste until it becomes very thick and dry.

Yuri said...

thanks HHB. I had a feeling that I wasn't on the right track and suspected that the paste should be more dry. I stopped when it got "lumpy", I will try again this time will be with your recipe, or with the hokkaido milk bread recipe. I love that bread!