
Sourdough chocolate buns
They are seriously delicious buns, and not too sweet at all. While writing Homemade Sourdough, I tested and slightly adapted a recipe for chocolate and cream cheese buns. Up front: the original recipe is not mine and for the life of me I cannot remember whose it is. If the author is reading this please let me know! This is one of many sourdough recipes on my website and I hope that the collection on the site is enough to inspire you to get sourdough baking and, of course, to buy the book – which is terrific, by the way!Back to the buns. I confess I was dubious. I thought they would be dreadful. I had never made chocolate bread before. I thought the filling would be sickly. How wrong I was.
Equipment
- bowls, scrapers, baking tray, non stick parchment, scale
Ingredients
For the dough
- 50 g Wheat sourdough starter from the vat in the fridge
- 350 g White wheat flour
- 50 g Water
- 160 g Milk
- 50 g White sugar
- 50 g Butter
- 1 Egg
- 6 Salt
- 1.5 tsp Vanilla extract
- 30 g Cacao powder
- 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda This is necessary to help the buns stay soft
For the filling
- 225 g Cream cheese
- 25 g White sugar
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 Egg
- 60 g Unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 Pinch Salt
Before baking
- 2 tbsp butter melted and cooled
Icing (optional)
- 110 g Icing sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 60 g Milk
Instructions
Day One
- Measure the sourdough starter into a large bowl and return any remaining starter to the refrigerator.
- Add 50 g of the flour and all the water. Stir and cover with a shower hat, and leave on the counter for around 8 hours or overnight
Day Two
- Add the remaining 300 g of flour and all the other dough ingredients and knead well for 10 minutes.
- Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with a shower hat and leave for 4 hours.
- Meanwhile, using a hand beater, beat together the ingredients for the filling.
- Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and roll it into a rectangle that is 55 cm x 25 cm.
- Gently spread the filling all over the dough – this is harder than it sounds so just be patient.
- Roll the dough up from one of the long ends, using a scraper to help you.
- Place it seam side down on the counter and slice the sausage of dough into 18 equal pieces.
- Place the pieces of dough on baking tray that you have lined with non stick parchment paper.
- Brush the tops and sides with butter and then lightly cover with plastic wrap and let the buns rest for 2 hours or until they pass the probe test.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and put the buns in.
- Bake the buns for 30 minutes.
- Remove them from the tray and let them cool completely on a wire rack.
- If you want to ice them, do it when they are cool.
Notes
If you would like to ice them, mix the icing ingredients together and then, with a spoon, dribble the icing all over the tops of the buns.
To take our full-day sourdough course
Learn more than you can possibly imagine in a small class where you can ask a lot of questions, eat a lot of bread and have plenty of your own to take home.