No Knead Chocolate Bread Dough for Chocolate Chip Bread & Chocolate Prune Bread

This Chocolate No Knead bread dough makes delicious yeasted dessert bread. It is definitely bread and not cake, but it will make chocolate lovers very happy. I filled mine with large bittersweet chocolate chips. I highly recommend doing the same.

The dough can be mixed up to five days in advance and refrigerated. It can also be frozen for up to 30 days. The recipe is from the book The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

I sprinkled mine with sparkling sugar, which gave the top a nice little crunch. The authors recommend serving this bread with sour cherry preserves. It's also excellent on its own.

This bread was selected by Jamie of Life's a Feast for the Bread Baking Babes to make this month. You can visit her site to see how other Babes fared with this bread.

So where are the prunes, you ask? I left them out of my bread this time, but I will definitely try them next time. I think dried cherries would be wonderful as well.

No Knead Chocolate Bread 

(I halved the original recipe)

Ingredients

283 g lukewarm water (100 degrees F)

85 g vegetable oil

5 g instant yeast

100 g sugar

390 g unbleached all purpose flour

43 g unsweetened cocoa

9 g salt

90 g chocolate chips

3/4 C chopped prunes, if using

Sparkling sugar, if using

Instructions

1. Mix all of the ingredients except the prunes and sparkling sugar with a dough whisk or large spoon until fully incorporated. I did have to mix it with a stand mixer for a bit just to fully distribute the cocoa. 
2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 2 to 3 hours, until the dough rises and flattens. 
3. You can use the dough at this point, but it is much easier to work with when it's cold. If you are not using at this time, refrigerate it for up to 5 days.
4. On baking day, shape the dough like a sandwich loaf and place it in an oiled 10 inch by 5 inch loaf pan. If you are using the prunes, flatten the dough and spread the prunes over the dough. Roll up the dough tightly into a sandwich loaf to evenly distribute the prunes. You can also add more chocolate chips at this point. 
5. Allow the dough to rise, loosely covered with plastic wrap, until doubled, about 90 minutes. If the dough is not cold, allow it to rise for 40 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
7. Slash the top of the dough lightly with a sharp knife, and sprinkle the top with the sparkling sugar if using. 
8. Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes, until the loaf reaches an internal temperature of 190 degrees F. 
9. Remove it from the pan and allow to cool completely before slicing. 

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