Chocolate Chip Sourdough Bread

If you love all things chocolate and sourdough, you’re going to love how easy and tasty this chocolate chip sourdough bread is! It will make your taste buds sing. I love the combination of the sweet chocolate chips with the tanginess of the sourdough bread … and the smell of this delicious bread when you lift the lid on the Dutch oven is just incredible! It’s less intense than this sourdough chocolate bread.

How To Make Chocolate Chip Sourdough Bread

Fermentolyse – Premixing The Dough

Weigh out your sourdough starter and water into a large ceramic or glass bowl. Mix the water and starter together briefly. Then add your flour and salt and mix whole lot together to form a shaggy dough. The dough will be fairly shaggy and only just brought together. Technically, fermentolyse does not involve salt, however I always add salt … let’s call it a fermentolyse with salt!

Cover your bowl with cling film or a damp tea towel and let it sit for around 1 hour. It’s ok if it’s a little bit longer, it’s not going to matter too much.

Forming Up The Dough

After the dough has been through autolyse you need to bring it together into a ball. Work your way around the bowl, grabbing the dough from the outside, stretching it up and over itself, into the centre, until a smooth ball is formed. You shouldn’t need more than about 20-30 stretches to form the ball.

You’ll notice that the dough is fully hydrated after soaking all the water up. It will be fairly sticky but as you bring it into a ball, it will become smoother and shinier.

Once the dough has formed into a smooth ball, pop the cling film back on and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Stretch & Fold – Creating Structure

Over the next few hours you need to create some structure for your dough by “stretching and folding”. Aim to do around 4 sets of stretches and folds. For each set, stretch the dough up and over itself 4 times. Leave around 15 minutes in between each set. Again you do not have to be exact with time, but you need to do 4 sets over 2 hours.

Lamination of Chocolate Chips

Once your dough is nice and elastic, spray your counter with water and pop the dough out of the bowl. Gently stretch the dough out so that it forms a rough sq uare – it doesn’t have to be exact. If you’ve never laminated dough before, check out these detailed instructions.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the dough and then roll it up into a log and place back into the bowl for bulk ferment. Try not to let your dough get too warm during the fermentation process once you’ve added the chocolate chips as they will start to melt and make the dough really difficult to shape.

If you don’t want to laminate the chocolate chips, see notes above for how to add them during the stretching and folding stage.

Bulk Fermentation

Once you’ve finished your stretch and folds, place the plastic wrap or damp towel back over your dough and let it rest and bulk ferment at room temperature (a plastic cover is a better option for this stage).

Shaping and Cold Fermentation

Once your dough has finished its bulk ferment, it’s time to shape it into either a boule or a batard. You will need a banneton to put your dough into. If you do not have a banneton, then a bowl or basket lined with a floured tea towel is perfectly fine. Make sure your bowl isn’t too big though, you want your dough to retain some shape.

Liberally dust your banneton with rice flour to stop it sticking. Place the shaped dough into your banneton smooth side down, so your seam is on the top – this way the top of your dough will get the pretty lines from the banneton. Now the dough is in its “shaping container” cover it loosely with a plastic bag or damp tea towel and place into the fridge.

Preparing To Bake

Once you’re ready to bake your sourdough, you’ll need to preheat your oven to 230ºC/450ºF. Leave your dough in the fridge until the very last minute – placing a cold dough into a hot oven will give you a great “spring”.

Bake Time!

When your oven is at temperature, tip your dough out onto a piece of parchment paper, scoring it with a lame. Place your dough into your hot Dutch oven, baking for 30 minutes with the lid on and 10 to 15 minutes with the lid off.

I don’t recommend adding extra chocolate chips to the top of the dough before baking as they generally burn – even if you’re using a Dutch Oven to bake your sourdough in.

Remove the loaf from the oven once done and let it cool on a wire rack.

Should You Laminate or Stretch and Fold?

In this chocolate chip sourdough bread recipe, I both stretch and fold the dough and laminate it. You can choose to do both, or just add the chocolate chips during stretch and folds. I have added both options in the recipe card so you can choose what you are comfortable with. If you’re new to the process of sourdough lamination, you can use this guide on how to laminate dough.

Flavor Variations

• To take this bread to the next level, sprinkle a little flaky sea salt on the top of the dough before you put it in the oven. I don’t recommend putting the salt in the banneton as it can draw moisture from your dough during cold fermentation.
• If you would like to add some dried fruit to this sourdough loaf, you can reduce the chocolate chips to 100 g and then add 100 g of dried fruit. Raisin, blueberries or cherries are lovely in this bread dough.

If you’re looking for some other chocolate chip sourdough recipes, why not try these amazingly chewy sourdough chocolate chip cookies, sourdough chocolate chunk muffins or even add some chocolate chips to this easy sourdough banana bread.

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