Chocolate-hazelnut sweet braided bread

by | Apr 8, 2016 | Breads, buns & biscuits

Creating the recipe of the perfect chocolate sweet bread is one of those projects I have been working on for a few years. With several attempts behind my back I can honestly say it’s not easy to make a chocolate sweet braided bread that can meet all the requirements. My braids were either too soft (the loaf lost its shape) or too hard; the dough was too crumbly and dried out, or it splitted during the baking process. I tried to use cocoa powder and butter for the filling, it didn’t work. I spread the dough with only melted chocolate – it was too concentrated. I failed many times, but I didn’t give up.

Last week I set about a new trial and, what a surprise, the result has more than fulfilled my expectations. It stands all the demands I expect from a chocolate sweet bread: it’s soft, not crumbly, not too sweet and yeast’s taste doesn’t dominate the pastry. Maybe it’s not flawless, but the best of all the chocolate sweet loafs I have ever made.

Though the recipe is a little long and may seem to be complicated, but appearances are deceptive. There is just one thing that makes this sweet bread different from the usual yeast pastries, namely the so called “cold rising”. As the dough contains more butter than a traditional sweet bread, it shall be proofed at low temperature to prevent butter from melting. For this reason it’s recommended letting the dough rise in the fridge overnight, so it can double in size.

Chocolate hazelnut sweet braided bread
Chocolate-hazelnut sweet braided bread – photo: zserbo.com
Chocolate-hazelnut sweet braided bread
Chocolate-hazelnut sweet braided bread – photo: zserbo.com
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2 Comments

Hungarian cottage cheese

This is what Hungarian túró looks like

You often ask me what kind of cottage cheese (or curd cheese or farmer's cheese - call it what you want) I use in the recipes. In Hungary the store-bought cottage cheese is dry and crumbly as you can see in the picture. So if a recipe calls for túró, I mean this type. If you can't obtain túró, you can try to make your own from whole milk. Click on the link below.

Wish list

If you are looking for a Hungarian recipe that hasn't been published on this website yet, let me know, and I'll do my best to post it.

Metric system vs cup

In Hungary metric units are in use, all the recipes on this website are based on this system, so a kitchen scale is necessary. Since I’m not familiar with cup as a measurement unit, I convert grams to cups by using an online converter. The values in brackets, therefore, are only approximate volumes, so, please, double-check them before you start cooking.

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