Bread Machine White Bread (Cocoa)
If you have a hankering for a loaf that has a little bit of chocolate goodness, this recipe is easy to make with your bread machine. Cocoa gives this bread machine recipe a subtle chocolatey flavour. It's not too sweet and is perfect for breakfast when it's toasted and slathered with raspberry jam. If you want to layer on the chocolate flavour, consider Nutella or a little nut butter and honey or jam. Give it a try with a smear of fruit-sweetened cream cheese.
Cocoa bread is great for a breakfast for Valentine's Day. But think beyond that to a birthday or anniversary brunch or even a breakfast group or brunch for the neighborhood, friends, or business. If you have a toaster in the break room at work, you might bring it along to share with your office mates for a team surprise. Because this recipe uses eggs and milk, do not use this bread machine recipe with a delayed start timer as you don't want the ingredients sitting unrefrigerated as bacteria could multiply. Keep this food safety precaution in mind.
While making bread in a bread machine, make sure to consider:
- The proper way to measure flour using measuring cups is to aerate it first. This is done either by sifting flour, or aerating it by fluffing it up and whisking it well, then spooning it into the measuring cup, then carefully removing any excess flour with a knife. If you just stick that measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop some out, you will get a lot more flour than what the recipe calls for. Do aerate the flour, or you will end up with dry dough!
- Use bread flour, not regular all-purpose flour. Bread flour contains a higher percentage of gluten than regular all-purpose flour. Using bread flour will produce taller, less dense loaves. If you use all-purpose flour (which has smaller percentage of gluten than bread flour), your loaves will be flatter and denser.
1 cup milk
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3 Tbsp. Canola oil
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. sea salt
½ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten
3 cups bread flour
2½ tsp. bread machine yeast
Combine ingredients as instructed in your bread machine manual. For example:
Pour milk into the bread pan. Add eggs, oil and vanilla. Add sugar, cocoa, and wheat gluten.
Add flour 1 cup at a time ensuring that it is is placed evenly across the wet ingredients.
Make a small indentation on top of flour and make sure it does not touch wet ingredients. Add yeast to the indentation. It is important that the yeast does not come into contact with any ingredient except the flour.
Insert the bread pan into the bread machine, press it down to lock in place. Close the lid and plug the bread machine in.
Recommended Settings:
Cycle: Basic or French
Loaf: 1.5 lb
Crust: Medium or Light
When the bread is done, remove the bread pan using oven mitts. Turn over the bread pan and shake it to release the loaf. Let the loaf cool on a wire rack for about 30 minutes before slicing.
Store the remaining bread wrapped in plastic wrap for 1-2 days.
Makes 1 loaf.
Cook's Notes:
- Resist the temptation to slice the bread right away. The steam trapped by the crust is still baking the bread, inside and releasing that too soon can result in slightly underbaked or crumbly bread.
- The bread will keep for a few days when stored in a bread box or airtight container at room temperature. If you have too much bread or want to bake a second loaf, freeze the bread for up to a month.
- If you don't have bread machine yeast, you can use active dry yeast, but it needs to be dissolved in water before being added to the machine.
- When your bread machine has been kneading for a few minutes, check the dough. If it seems too stiff, add a little bit of water and continue checking until it seems soft enough. If too wet, add more flour in small amounts until it seems to be soft yet not sticky.