Fantastic Bake Along – Chili/Chocolate Bread

My post is a bit late, as usual. I had planned to have it posted yesterday, but unfortunately by the time I got around to starting it, I had a headache, and my photo editing software required an upgrade…which required more disc space on my computer, so I had to rearrange some things. By the time I was done, I was no longer in the mood to write, so here I am on Sunday morning, trying to get my thoughts together for this bake along.

I was excited to see the recipe provided by Tina at Kristabella’s Hodgepodge for this month’s Fantastic Bake Along hosted by Tracy at It’s a T-Sweets Day! I have been wanting to bake another loaf of bread, and Tina’s chili/chocolate bread looked delicious! I made sure I had all the ingredients early in the week so that as soon as I had time I could pop them into my bread maker, which I finally did on Friday night after work.

For a change I followed the recipe pretty closely, except the original post only showed 1/2 tsp of yeast, and although I thought it was a small amount I went with it only to find out today that it should have been 1 1/2 tsp. No matter, amazingly, my bread still turned out great!

I usually only have semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand, but I used milk chocolate chips for my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last month, and didn’t have anything else, so I used in the bread, hoping to get a stronger chili flavour, unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way, but the bread was still delicious.

I turned on the bread-maker and when the timer went to add the chocolate chips, I did so. Then it was a waiting game. The cycle on my bread-maker is 3 hours 40 minutes total for basic white bread, and I started it after 6 pm, so I had a long wait ahead of me. I was a bit worried for the longest time because I thought my bread wasn’t going to rise, but in the last hour it suddenly made a huge jump and I was no longer worried. (Sorry, no pictures, it’s hard to get one through the little window of my bread-maker.

I have to tell you, the last hour and a half was torture as the smell of baking bread filled my apartment. It didn’t help that I ate a light dinner, anticipating a slice of fresh bread later in the evening, so I was also hungry.

Finally the timer went off, my bread was done! I tried to wait for it to cool, I really did, but I was only able to wait about 20 minutes before cutting off 2 thin slices and having a little snack before bed.

As you can see, the chocolate chips in my bread melted and mixed pretty evenly throughout, so my bread is not as marbled as some of the other bakers, but it was still delicious!

And on Saturday morning, I had another slice, with tea for breakfast. I can envision making a loaf of this a few days ahead for a special occasion and using it to make French Toast, or a French Toast casserole type breakfast dish, and serving it with fruit and whipped cream. Yum.

Thanks Tina for a fantasic recipe! I’ll be sure to make this again, especially for company!

I hope you’ll check out the other bakers at the links below:

• Tracy at It’s a T-Sweets Day!
• Tina at Kristabella’s Hodgepodge
• Brenna at Crochet539
• Tami at Tanglewood Knots
• Kathy at Sewing Etc.
• Emma at Emma Crafts Design
• Lucia at Crochet, Knit, and More
• AJ at A Petite Slice of Life