Introducing We Should Cocoa November: The Bread challenge. And a recipe for Chocolate, Cardamom and Walnut Krantz

Chocolate, Cardamom and Walnut Krantz

Perhaps you were intrigued by the 8-stranded plaited loaf on the recent Great British Bake-off series. If like me, you are less dextrous than you would like, why not try this two stranded plait. It is a Krantz. A Krantz you ask? Yes this Israeli recipe is from the most wonderful cookbook I have read in years. The new book by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Jerusalem.

Ever since I bought this book I have been cooking from it, plotting each recipe and trying my own variations. You may have seen I made the roasted butternut last month. Well here is dessert. A sweet loaf that I defy you to resist. A slow rising yeasted sweet dough is left to rise overnight. In the morning, you roll it out, spread it with deliciousness (aka chocolate spread, nuts and other good stuff), roll it up, split it and plait it. It is not fast but it really is not that hard. I am not a baking goddess. Simple things suit me but this recipe worked a dream. I am learning that bread and yeast need patience and leaving alone. Something that my Gemini personality finds hard to do. Start this bread one Saturday night and you will be enjoying a wonderful breakfast come Sunday morning.

The idea of chocolate in bread made me think it would be a great idea to get even more such recipes. You know I like chocolate right? Well thanks to the wonderful Choclette and Chele who started off the We Should Cocoa challenge, I am hosting this month’s challenge. So I am challenging you to come up with breads or yeasted sweet dough bakes that incorporate chocolate.

You can find the instructions on the We Should Cocoa Challenge here over at Chocolate Log Blog.

Email your entries to weshouldcocoa@yahoo.co.uk. You can also leave a comment below with your recipe linked if you wish.

Don’t forget to link to Chele’s and Choclette’s blogs and to this post please!

Now let me give you my adaptation of the Ottolenghi recipe. I’ve essentially used the same dough recipe but changed the filling a little as well as adding some flavours to the syrup glaze.

Chocolate, Cardamom, Walnut Krantz Cake (Recipe adapted from Jerusalem, Ottolenghi)

Makes 1 loaf cake

Level of difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients:

Dough:

250g plain flour

50g caster sugar

7g dried yeast

2 medium eggs

60 ml water

Pinch of salt

75g butter

Vegetable oil to grease bowl

Chocolate filling

25g Icing sugar

15g cocoa powder

65g Dark Chocolate

60g melted butter

50g walnuts

Half a teaspoon ground cardamom seeds

Syrup

130g Caster sugar

80ml water

half teaspoon vanilla essence

half teaspoon lemon essence (optional)

 

Method:

Put the flour, sugar and yeast in a bowl of a stand mixer. Mix it thoroughly using your hands to ensure the yeast is distributed through the mixture.

Using the dough hook, start the mixer at low speed and add the eggs and water. Mix for 3 minutes until the dough forms a ball. Add salt and then the butter a little at a time. Mix for 10 minutes at medium speed until you have a smooth, elastic dough that leaves the sides of the bowl.

Put the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and place in refridgerator overnight.

The next morning:

Grease a loaf tin.

Make the filling – combine the icing sugar, cocoa, cardamom, melted butter and melted chocolate to form a paste.

Roll the dough into a rectangle (38 by 28 cm)

Trim the edges then spread the chocolate onto the dough leaving an edge of 2cm all round.

 

Scatter the chopped walnuts over the chocolate

Brush water along one of the long edges and then roll the dough starting at the other way, sealing the roll at the edge that has been moistened with water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the roll with the seam down, trim the edges by 2 cm and then cut the roll into two halves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the halves side by side, cut side up and then make a plait by lifting the right half over the left one, and continuing to the end, making a twisted rope effect.

lift into the loaf tin and leave to rise for an hour

Preheat oven to 190DegC (170Deg C for fan ovens)

Bake for 30 minutes until a knife inserted into the krantz comes out clean

Whilst it is baking, heat the sugar, water, vanilla and lemon essence in a saucepan, removing it from the heat when the sugar is melted and the syrup comes to a boil. Allow to cool.

When the krantz comes out of the oven, pour the syrup over the cake and then allow it to cool in the tin, removing only once it is warm and has absorbed all the syrup.