Chocolate-Cinnamon Toasting Bread

Now this bread is interesting. I got this awesome cookbook, Enlightened Chocolate, for my birthday (thanks Marsha.) The author, Camilla Saulsbury, is one of my heroes, so I was extra thrilled to dig in. It's a book of light-ish recipes using unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate. Sweet, savory, breakfast, drinks, everything. So when I came across a chocolate bread recipe you make in the bread machine, I knew I had my #1 thing to try.

We made it one afternoon for a snack. It made the house smell like chocolate heaven. The idea is you make the bread, and then you use it to make toast, for snack, for teatime, for breakfast, whatever. I couldn't wait to dig in. We sliced, we toasted, we ate. The kids didn't like it. I was surprised, too, but not unpleasantly.

The thing is, it's not as sweet as you might expect. It only has 1/3 cup sugar and some chopped bittersweet chocolate. So it's sweet, but just barely. If you know that going in, and you're ready for a new way of eating chocolate, make it. I tried it first with peanut butter, but it wasn't quite right. Next I did some butter and cinnamon sugar and was that ever a treat! Strawberry cream cheese, orange butter, things like that would be good on it. Or if you're a mega-dark purest who doesn't need their chocolate sweet, then just plain is perfect.Chocolate-Cinnamon Toasting Bread

1 large egg yolk

1 cup water

2 cups unbleached bread flour

1 cup whole wheat bread flour (or another cup regular bread flour)

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 T unsalted butter

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

2 tsp bread machine yeast (rapid rise)

1. Whisk the egg yolk and water in a small bowl; pour into bread pan of bread machine. In a medium bowl whisk the flours, cocoa powder, cinnamon and chocolate; sprinkle into pan, covering the water-egg mixture.

2. Add the butter, salt and brown sugar in opposite corners of the pan. Make a shallow indentation in the center of the pan; spoon yeast into the indentation.

3. Set the machine to the basic/normal setting for a small loaf. Press start. At the end of the baking cycle (3 hours for my machine), turn out onto a wire rack. Cool completely. Makes 1 loaf, 14 slices

Recipe from Enlightened Chocolate by Camilla Saulsbury