Get Your Chef On ~ Chocolate : Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf

Well it is time for yet another GYCO Challenge Reveal ! This month 

Jen of Four Mars and One Venus and

Julie of White Lights on Wednesday

challenged us to create a chocolaty delight. 

though there were numerous chocolate recipes to choose from, it took me a while to decide what i wanted to make for this round of the challenge... and it was Irvin Lin's brilliant photographs that made me finally decide on the 

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf.

it was a good decision because this loaf baked me happy.  it looked gorgeous and tasted divine. 

in fact we were so delighted by how the loaf turned out that following the same recipe i baked a second loaf the next day, this time a chocolate swirl brioche, and took it for my brother's family. needless to say they loved the took of the fancy loaf and were more than happy to dive into it right away. so a big thanks to Jen and Julie for this months challenge. I can now bake marbled and swirled Chocolate Brioche loaves at home ! 

now the recipe of the loaves 

as adapted from Eat the Love and The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf  (Recipe for a 2 pound loaf )

ingredients

for the brioche dough

• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 21/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 1/3 cup semisweet chocochips
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 11 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

1. i made the brioche dough in the bread machine. for that I all the ingredients expect the butter in the machine pan and  programmed it for the dough cycle. 
2. when the machine started on the second knead I added 2 tablespoons of the butter and restarted the dough cycle. as the butter started getting incorporated in the dough I handed another 2 tablespoons of butter and continued this way till all the butter was incorporated into dough. i then let the dough cycle complete. 
3. when the machine beeped at the end of the cycle i inverted the dough into a plastic container and divided the dough into 3 equal parts. next i put 1/3 of the dough back into the bread machine pan along with the ingredients for the chocolate layer. again i programmed the machine for the dough cycle and let it run till all the ingredients were well combined and a smooth chocolaty dough rode on the blade of the pan, about 10 minutes. 
4. i then stopped the machine and stretched the chocolate dough to a 11x6 inch rectangle over a plastic sheet. i then put half of the brioche dough on top of the spread out chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size. next inverting the two layers on another plastic sheet I put the remaining brioche dough on top of the chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size.
   
   then placing the sandwiched dough in a plastic container i covered it with a plastic cling wrap and transferred the container to the refrigerator. 
5. 7 hours later, i took out the sandwiched dough from the refrigerator, cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from it. then piling the rectangles together in a loaf pan, i covered the pan with a kitchen towel and let the dough double in size. this took about 2 1/2 hours. 
6. once the dough doubled i preheated the oven to 400 degrees F, then egg washed the loaf, sprinkled some sugar on top and in the preheated oven, baked the loaf for 20 minutes. then turning down the oven temperature to 350 degrees F I baked the loaf for another 10 minutes until surface looked golden brown.

i waited for 30 minutes before taking the loaf out of the pan and cut out the first slice after the loaf had cooled down completely. 

Swirled Chocolate Brioche Loaf (Recipe for a 11/2 pound loaf)

for the brioche dough

• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 5 tbsp semisweet chocochips
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour 
• 8 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

for the swirled brioche loaf i proceeded in the same way as for the marbled loaf except that in step 5, after taking out the dough from the refrigerator, i rolled it out with the rolling pin then folded it as shown in "1st fold"...

then rolled it out again and folded the dough as shown in "2nd fold."i then cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from the folded dough and proceeded as above.

the dough before and after the rise...

so those were my gorgeous Chocolate Brioche Loaves. Hope you had as much fun reading about it as i had baking and eating them. Wish me luck for the Challenge and do visit the other delicious entries for this GYCO Chocolate challenge at .....

Four Marrs and One Venus &  White Lights on Wednesday

Until next time...  take care..

These loaves are being Yeastspotted. 
Also sharing these at a couple of weekly food events.

Grape Bundt Cake with Chef Alex's Sauce...

I just realized that last I did not do my A Cake A Week post. Not that I did not bake any.. just that the photos came in late and then i got busy with other things and forgot all about it... anyway... so i baked this gorgeous bundt cake last week... I baked it for mother's day celebration at my son's daycare. and it was quite befitting for the occasion... since it was fruity and mildly sweet. and Alex's sauce... ohh... it was delicious. after tasting the prepared cake i really regretted for having poured so little of it over the cake.  though the cake was perfect to take to the daycare, those with a sweet-tooth like me might want to bake it with  an extra helping of sugar or serve it with a generous helping of the ginger-grape sauce. at least that is what i intend to do next time. anyway here's the recipe from The Italian Dish that i followed this time .... and in my opinion, with the topping and all this mildly sweet fruity cake easily qualifies as  one of my finest cakes of the season.

Fava Yogurt Soup

The other day I spotted fava beans at the local grocery store. I remembered them from one of Chef Giada De Laurentiis' cookery show. almost in an impulse i bought a bunch. not too many just a few to find out how they taste. and when it was time to cook them i sat browsing the web for fava recipes. Since Mr MN does not have fish Chef Laurentiis' recipe of Red Snapper with Fava Bean got ruled out. so i searched some more before stumbling upon a few fava recipes in the Heath section of  New York Times. Fava and Buttermilk Soup was the simplest one and i decided to try it out last night. just to suit our taste i made some minor changes and wowed Mr MN and baby with this tasty and super healthy Fava Yogurt Soup. 

as i mentioned before, i did not have a lot of fava beans in hand. after skinning the beans i had a mere half cup of beans at disposal. though the soup was nice and flavorful and great as an appetizer, next time i'll probably make it with double the amount of fava beans. with that in mind i have slightly modified  the quantity of ingredients listed for the recipe.

Baking Partners Challenge : New York Style Pizza...

Its the 15th of the month and hence time to reveal this months Baking Partner's Bake !! 

and this month we baked........

.

.

taDaaaa...

Yes ...we baked this month 

      New York Style Pizza......

a thin crust pizza with the signature pizza sauce 

with toppings of our choice.

The recipes at hand were ....

• New York Style Pizza Crust from Feeling Foodish and New York Style Pizza Sauce from Seroius Eats as suggested by Pam of Living Rancho Deluxe
• New York Style Pizza from Serious Eats  as suggested by Archana of  Tangy Minds 
• New York Style Pizza from Pizza Making as suggested by Priya of Ennveetu Kitchen .

To say the truth though I was excited to make pizza,  I did not feel very challenged when the recipes were suggested. after all pizza is a weekly affair. so what could be so challenging about baking it.  neither the dough recipe nor the sauce recipe seemed challenging enough till i saw this video in Feeling Foodish...

and my reaction was.. oho.. so that is the challenge !! i played and replayed the video several times and tried my best to stretch the pizza dough like the chef. and i think i almost got it right the second time. though the pizza tasted great there are a few issues with my topping that i still need to work on. for starters i think i should stop using preshredded cheese because for whatever reason they tend to brown before the pizza crust is completely done... also i need to control myself when spreading the pizza sauce. somehow every time, i tend to get a little too generous while spreading the sauce on the crust and as a result my slices tend to be a little limp towards the center..

anyway i guess it'll take me a few more pizzas to make that ultimate thin crust pizza at home. however since the challenge things are definitely  looking up and i am hopeful that the next one might be the one !  Many thanks to Pam, Archana and Priya for the challenge and Swathi for initially such a lovely group !

Asparagus with Indian Spices

Did you know that May is National Asparagus month ? Well I didn't till a week back. and once i knew I thought i should get some and cook. So the other day I cooked some asparagus  to go with our Indian dinner. It was the regular recipe that we like with our dal and rice. but just because it is May I took a few shots to feed the blog and tell us how we often like our asparagus.

and just so that you know. we indians do not always measure out the ingredients with spoons and cups (though for the sake of thepost i have done it this time..) so if anytime you wish to cook asparagus spears the indian way do not hesitate to alter the measurements to your liking... if you do not overdo you'll most like get the Indian flavors right.

Coconut Ricotta Bites with Lime syrup

Today is the second Thursday of the month. Hence the reveal day of  

BEHIND THE CURTAIN DESSERT CHALLENGE  !!

The two assigned ingredients for the month were coconut and lime and since that did not seem like a very difficult combination for a dessert, i decided to join in this month. now feeling all adventurous i next decided on trying these flavors on an Indian sweet and the first thing that came up my mind was a famous Odiya sweet namely, Chhena Poda.  Even Mr MN thought it might be a good idea, so i went ahead and baked this authentic Odiya dessert with a twist of ingredients and transformed it into delicious Coconut Ricotta bites with Lime syrup. 

Qubani ka Metha(Stewed Apricot Dessert) : South Vs North May Challenge

This month Roha from Hydrabadi Cuisine challenged the North Team to make Qubani ka Meetha. Till then I had never heard of this dessert. so out of curiosity i went to the the local grocery store the very next day to got the required ingredients. though i did not get the exact form of dried apricot , i found a close cousin, Dried Turkish Apricots  and decided to make the dessert with it. following Roha's recipe I soaked the dried apricots overnight and prepared the dessert the very next day. we were so delighted by how the dessert looked and tasted that without waiting to take the photographs in daylight we licked it off our plates that very night.  and then i had to prepare a second batch to feed the blog...  

In the recipe Roha had mentioned that the stewed apricots can be topped with malai,  whipped cream or custard. just to keep things fruity I decided to make a apricot mousse instead and we loved the combination of the two.

Pinwheels for Paratha... (BWW #82)

Last week I stumbled upon the pictorial recipe of Kerala paratha at Cooks Joy. Needless to say I tried it right away. though my  parathas' did not turn out as flaky as hers, i thought they were pretty good for a first attempt..

For the recipe hop over to Vardhani's place Cooks Joy. I am sure her clicks will tempt you to try your hands at the pleated pinwheels soon...

Sending the photograph to Black and White Wednesday #82, a photography event started by Susan of  The Well-Seasoned Cook, now organized by Cinzia of Cindystar and hosted this week by Alex of  Food4Thought.