Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Bread! (CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED)
Thanksgiving has come and gone too quickly yet again. We have finished eating our Thanksgiving Leftovers Torta, but we’ll continue to hold on to our reasons to stop and give thanks, especially as the holiday madness begins in earnest. We’ve come up with a great way to celebrate the season with you–and they don’t involve turkey or long lines of shoppers–a decadent chocolate bread, laced with coffee, cardamom, and more chocolate!
Let’s start with the bread. The recipe is our Chocolate Espresso Whole Wheat Bread recipe, which comes from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day, but tweaked just a bit, with a swirl of cardamom sugar and chocolate chunks. The combination of chocolate, cardamom, and coffee is quite a treat; the flavors compliment each other beautifully. This bread is rich and dreamy, but the dough is still made with whole wheat flour and honey, adding lots of flavor with less fat than our regular brioche, for example. There is, of course, the coffee icing that covers the top, an added little indulgence for the Holidays.
Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (or two packets)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
1 cup strong brewed coffee, lukewarm
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
4 large eggs
1/2 cup neutral-flavored oil
3/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine
Whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten in a 5 quart bowl, or other lidded food container. Combine the liquid ingredients and mix with the dry ingredients without kneading.
The dough will be loose, but will firm up when chilled. Don’t try to use it without chilling at least 2 hours.
Cover the dough, and allow to rest at room temperature until it rises and collapses, about 2 hours. Refrigerate and use over the next 5 days.
On baking day, grease a 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch nonstick loaf pan. Cut off a 2-pound piece of dough and shape into a ball. Generously flour your work surface, and roll the dough into a 1/4 inch rectangle, dusting with flour as needed. Brush the surface of the dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter, and sprinkle the cardamom sugar mixture evenly over the butter. Then sprinkle the chopped chocolate over the sugar mixture. Roll the dough into a cylinder, and pinch the seams shut. Place in the prepared loaf pan, and allow to rest for about an hour and 45 minutes, covered loosely with plastic wrap. (For detailed instructions on rolling out, sprinkling, and rolling up, see Zoe’s post here).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread for 45-50 minutes, until firm. Remove the bread from the pan and drizzle with the coffee icing (recipe follows). Allow to cool before slicing and eating.
Coffee Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons strong coffee
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt together. Add coffee one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
These books look perfect for winter baking!
Wowsers!!!! That bread looks amazingly moist, dark and chocolatey! I can’t wait to make it when my sisters are here for Christmas. This will be just the thing to sit proudly on the counter, waiting for everyone to tumble in the door with their suitcases and dogs. I love your work kids, and would LOVE< LOVE< LOVE to win your set of books! Much love, Nancy
I have the first book & I just love it!! We have home made bread all the time & it would be great to have the other two 🙂
I LOVE your recipes!!! They bless my guests and family daily! There is always a loaf of bread of some sort for all to enjoy now! I never thought I’d be making such incredible bread. I’ll be making bread for the neighbors and family for Christmas this year! Thank you, Thank you!
Love, love, love homemade breads of every kind! Would be great fun to try something from all of your books. Thanks for the opportunity to win them. CJ
I like anything with cardamom! Thanks for introducing me to this way of baking, I never knew how easy making your own bread could be.
Ah, this looks amazing! I LOVE cardamom for holiday baking, but I haven’t paired it with chocolate before. This might be something nice for my husband to take to work and share.
Love your bread!!! I have ABin5 and have turned my parents and my brother on to it!! I would love to try your other books too!! I’ll also be making your cinnamon rolls with the brioche recipe for the holidays, made them about a month ago and they were to die for!! Melt in your mouth!
Now that it’s getting colder (even in CA), I have been wanting to make bread. This one looks AMAZING!
Going to try this:)
Mmmmm. Ill be making this chocolate bread over the holidays! Probably more than once! I love getting your emails and am hoping to win your signed books!
That bread looks amazing!
This Chocolate Cardemom bread looks so good! I am excited to be able to win your books…I make some sort of your 5 min a day bread every week and would love the healthy version…You guys Rock.
Oh Dear! That looks sooooo Delicious!
Love your bread recipes. I do have a suggestion / request for your next book though. How about a wheat free book. My son was recently diagnosed with a wheat allergy but loves bread and cookies. We are finding some recipes but would love to have more.
Happy baking everyone.
All of your recipes look fantastic! Thank you for offering this giveaway!
Just when I thought your recipes couldn’t get better —- Cardamom-!! I would eat my shoe sprinkled with cardamom-!! Yummmmm-! Happiest holidays-!!
You have yet to post a recipe that I don’t love! As a college student, I can’t afford the books yet, but I borrow my mom’s as often as I can!
I would love to win these books! I used the Artisan Bread in 5 min a day book for a Bread Sale fundraiser recently and was so blessed in return. A full letter about it is coming your way soon!
I smell Christmas!!
Can’t wait to try!
I have made several batches of the basic dough since I got the your first two books. So easy and tasty!
This looks so complex and delicious. I recently borrowed ABin5 from a friend and made the cinnamon swirl bread. It was divine. I have your books on my Christmas list!
I NEVER tried baking my own bread until I found these books. I LOVE the bread I am baking now!
I make your breads all the time, I have shown many people the “original recipe” and how easy it is to make your own homemade bread. Thanks for the great giveaway!
Love the books!! Can’t wait to be home more and start making homemade bread more often!!
Your book Healthy Bread … has revolutionized the way I cook. I look forward to your posts, like this one, to expand my possiblities and encourage me to be creative in the kitchen. Thanks for all your hard work.
I have loved your breads since first go and introduce as many people as I can to your books. I have not yet ventured into the pizza/flatbreads yet but would love to give it a try!
This is spooky, I was just thinking about Chocolate Bread last night & thinking it might be time to try it! Hope to be baking it soon from one of your books. Thanks for making great bread so much easier.
I have the first book and love it! I have told many friends about it. I can’t wait to try this recipe.
Can’t wait to make this recipe. I have loved all the other bread recipes I have tried from your books.
I have the first two books and have given the first one as a gift many times. Would love to have the third one as well.
Will be using the brioche recipe from ABin5 as the base for several holiday breads this year: Hungarian Walnut roll, and Swiss Marzipan Stollen.
Mmmmm, this bread sounds divine, and like a great match with my winter addiction of peppermint mochas!
Love your recipes! Hope to win your books!
I can’t wait to make this. Thank you for making 2012 a year of breadmaking discoveries for me. I look forward to more to come.
I have all the books. The first two in hard copy, the third as an e-book. Love them all and can’t wait to try this!
Can’t wait to try this variation. Love your recipes. I’m adapting my holiday bread recipe that I make every year to your method, using brioche as the base.
Looks delicious!
I love your first book so much. This bread looks amazing, I will definately be making some of this!
Wow- this looks delish! And unique- which is always a plus for holiday baking. Thank you!
Wow, this bread looks fabulous. I love seeing chocolate breads – we carried it at Starbucks for awhile while I was there as a pairing to an African single-origin coffee, and I’ve also had a chocolate bread at a restaurant called Biga on the Banks in San Antonio during my first Valentine’s day with my now-husband. I can’t wait to try this out and see if it sparks some memories.
Happy holidays to you both. I am waiting for cold weather to warm up the kitchen with great bread aromas!
Would love to own the three books. My family enjoys fresh bread.
I recently bought cardamom from Penzeys and have been pinning recipes to use it, so I will be definitely pinning this. What a great giveaway!
I love your bread books. Would love to own a signed set.
Cardamom/coffee/chocolate is a genius combination! I’ve been tossing cardamom seeds into my hot cereal these cold snowy mornings.
I would love to win — I really enjoy your recipes on the blog!
That looks lovely! Even more lovely would be winning a set of your books. I already have two, but if I win, I will have all three AND I will have two Christmas presents ready to go to their new homes!
My friend Sueellen has just given me your site, and I am anxious to try my hand at a few recipes, I used to bake all of our breads and english muffins, sold them at the little store in town.
Now because of health, I am looking for good quality product at a minimum of energy spent, and my friend came thru for me, thank you for this give away, I am hoping! warm hugs from vermont
I am so going to make this!!!! Yummy…coffee and chocolate!