Baked 8/4/2025
Ingredients:
- 100g powdered cocoa + 200g hot water for blooming the cocoa
- 900g AP flour (low protein)
- 600g water
- 200g levain
- 150g dried cherries
- 21g salt
I began by combining 100g cocoa + 200g hot water, which made a paste. This was recommended to “bloom” the cocoa. What would have happened if I hadn’t done this? No idea. Why 200g hot water? It just seemed like the right amount to hydrate the cocoa enough that it could be incorporated into a dough later. I was worried that it might dry out while it was cooling, but this didn’t happen.
While the cocoa paste was cooling I combined the AP flour, 520g water, and the levain to autolyse. At this time I also combined the dried cherries, salt, and 80g of warm water to hydrate the cherries and dissolve the salt.
An hour later, the cocoa paste was cooled. I combined everything to make the final dough. I usually bulk ferment my dough at room temperature, whatever that might be in the unpredictable climate of Oakland. However, I had read that the cocoa could make the dough less extensible than ideal so I decided to put some effort into creating good conditions for the dough. I put it in a proofer at 85F. I used the Tartine method of folding the dough every half hour for a total of 4 folds.
When the dough was finished fermenting, I divided it, bench rested it, and then shaped one half into a tension roll for baking in a loaf pan and the other one into a boule.
I put both loaves in the fridge to proof. I took the boule out first, around 4.5 hours later and let it come to room temperature for baking another 2.5 hours later. The loaf in the bread pan followed the same schedule but an hour later.
Both loaves had great oven spring and overall seemed to be really nice bakes. Because I formed the cocoa into a paste which was then incorporated into the dough imperfectly, the crumb had a subtle swirl that I also found very pleasing. The cherries really came to life in the bake, becoming hydrated somewhere along the way and bursting and charring a bit.
What would I do differently / next time? Not much! Maybe add cardamom?
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