Choco Pan de Coco Recipe (2024)

A levain is what you use to leaven the bread instead of using straight sourdough (or, baker's yeast) which can be sour, tangy, spent, and/or loose. Take a bit from your 'mother sourdough' and add to it a small amount of the same types of flours you plan to use in your bread recipe plus an equal amount of water, more or less. Let that stand for 6 - 12 hours, depending on how warm your resting area is, then use most of it to leaven the bread dough.

To make this without sourdough starter:Make Levain by using 30 grams each flour and water for starter and 1/4tsp yeast (rest of levain is same)For dough add 1 to 2 tsp yeast when you make dough. Cut room temp rising times in half (as a guide)Check temp in water/coconut milk mix and don’t heat above 110. Use your senses to see when it’s risen enough. Finished bread should be 190 to 200. The post bake oven sit might be for finish cooking. Trying now.

I am puzzled by the instruction to mix the levain/starter with liquid that is “steaming.” The temperature at which steam forms will kill the organisms (yeast, etc.) in the levain. The liquid should be no warmer than between 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Levain goes by different names. For instance, you may see the term levain used interchangeably with “sourdough” or “sourdough starter.” In most ways, levain and sourdough starter are the same: both are made from flour, water, and wild yeast, and both are used to ferment and flavor bread dough.

Levain is an intermediate stage of breadmaking. Some breads are made just by tossing ingredients together and cycles of kneading and rising. But sometimes you make two parts, the one with yeast in it (the levain) and one without, which might include ingredients that aren't good for yeast (like salt.) You build the levain and then combine it with the other ingredients after the levain has risen by itself for a while.

Always looking for an excuse to use the starter I’m feeding daily so thanks for the recipe! I just made it and it came out as pictured. It’s very dense as mentioned with over 100 grams of flour per roll but I love chocolate bread and it came out great. A couple notes to others: follow the grams not the measurements. With the flour I used it wasn’t even close. For baking time I bake bread on my lower rack and at 35 minutes the internal temp was only 137 so I had to bake for 55 min to get to 200.

- Bake for 35 minutes, remove from the oven, - Let cool in pan for 20 minutes before you try to get anything out- Remove from pan and let cool for another 30 before you taste.

The recipe for levain is in the first part of the recipe: sourdough starter, bread flour and warm water.

I got confused here too. I think they meant “then remove from pan”. I had to bake it for 55 minutes though. I checked at 35 min with a thermometer and it came out gooey and only 137 degrees internally. Typically bread should be closer to 200 so I baked for 55 min and it came out great.

Time charttotal time 3 days Day 1: 4 hours. start by 4pmDay 2: 16 1/2 hours. Start by 3:30 to be ready at 8 am the next dayDay 3: 7 hours. Start at noon to have ready by 7 pm supper

Levain (also called leaven) is the fed sourdough starter that you will use in your bread, that will be cooked into your recipe. See the top of the ingredient list and step 1: it's an overnight thing.You maintain and keep your sourdough starter indefinitely: the part of your sourdough starter that you divide off, feed, and mix into your recipe is your levain. The starter lives on like a pet (mine is named Guadalupe :-)). The levain will die in the heat of the oven.

It's a bread made over two to three days. You have 3 times where you might wait 4 hours and a 12 hour overnight chilling.I think it develops great sour dough flavors. And if you ever had a sourdough bagette in France with chocolate on it, you'll easily wait. I love international sourdough recipes. Mine will be gluten-free.

The ingredients list for the final dough is missing the scant 1/2 cup or 100 ml of water called out in step 2.

I had a lot of trouble with the directions in this recipe. 1) Adding hot milk to my leavin would kill it. I took the temp. of the milk down to 103 F. 2) At completion I had a total of 1,164g of dough. Divided by 6 each dough ball would weigh 194g. This is why 35 min in an oven would not cook it through. I divided each ball in half for a total of 12 and put it in two pans. 3) In step 5 after 35 minutes turn off your oven and leave the dough in the pan with the door closed for an extra 20 minutes.

I think people are misunderstanding what this bread is supposed to be. It's not a sweet bread like a brioche. It's meant to accompany soups or beans--the chocolate and coconut are supposed to savory in nature, the way one uses chocolate in a mole.

These rolls are excellent for breakfast with coffee! I misjudged the recipe timeline and skipped the first rise at room temperature. I put the dough straight into the refrigerator overnight, then allowed it to come to room temperature before dividing. No harm done -- they still rose well in the pan and the oven, and they have great texture.A heads up: These are dense and filling! For me, they're definitely a main dish, not a side. I might divide the dough into eight or ten pieces next time.

So, my question is this: what do I do if I have no starter, and won’t be able to make one in the near future? Is there any alternative?

I have made this twice now. Followed instructions as written. Fantastic results both times. Try slathering it with coconut butter (manna). Delicious!

Increase brown sugar to 4 tbls.

They turned out well; I divided the dough in half and made 6 rolls in 2 loaf pans. Good sour flavor, barely sweet, great with coffee. I probably wouldn't make them again, 3+ days was just too long and not really worth it for these.

This is so delicious with coffee in the morning ! We slice it thin, warm it up, and butter lightly. It’s not a sweet bread. However, it has a perfect amount of cocoa and sugar. Reminds me of a pumpernickel in texture. I covered my pan with a silicone lid and baked it for 60 minutes (one turn at 30 min) to 200 degrees internal. Then, I let it sit to cool. One more note— the first and third rises took much longer—it’s chilly here in OR. I probably waited an additional three hours.

My wife loves this as a savory breakfast bread. She says it reminds her of a chewy version of a nice stout or porter. FWIW, I used @Ginger's baking strategy: "For the oven, 35 min baking and then 20 minutes in an off oven (no peaking) and then 30 to cool on a rack gave the perfect texture."

I found that when I mixed the levain with the coconut milk and water first, before adding the dry ingredients, I got much better results

Made this as instructed, though I used flaked coconut (it was unsweetened flaked or sweetened shredded). It did not look anything like the pic, didn't rise but it's yummy! I do think the recipe needs a few updates. I heated the coconut milk, then cooled it to 100 F before adding it. I rolled the bread into 12 small balls and used two 8.5" x 4.5" tins and baked for 50 min (to a 205 internal temp). Dense, but perfectly baked and really yummy.

I loved it the first time I made it, but it was a little messy with the chocolate chips. Also, I mistakenly stacked the balls instead of side-by-side. This time I left out the chips. Made 8 round rolls and baked for 25 min. Perfection!

After reading elsewhere that cocoa retards the rise, I added 2 grams (1/2 tsp) of yeast when blending all the dough Ingredients. It made a huge difference and yielded a delightful result. Still a tight crumb but so much lighter than the original - has a taste closer to pumpernickel bread. Excellent. I baked for about 40 minutes then pulled and let cool in the pan slightly before turning out.

I read all the Notes before making this, so I made some of the recommended adjustments: lower temp coconut milk, divided the dough into 2 bread pans, 1/4 tsp yeast instead of sourdough, and long fermentation times. I didn’t have choc chips or shredded coconut. The dough rose spectacularly to yield 12 brown rolls that were ok but tough to chew. To get that nice uniform color, I kneaded for 20 mins. I wouldn’t make this again. Froze well though.

Worth baking for the fragrance alone! Just had my first small slice, still warm, and so tender! The very subtle chocolate flavor would be fabulous with black bean soup, so now I'm looking forward to oncoming autumn and winter and spicy, earthy soups with this. Followed the recipe exactly, except substituted semi-sweet chips in the cupboard for bittersweet. Didn't plan the proofing schedule perfectly, so it fermented in the fridge just about 17 hours-still rose beautifully--a great success!

I forgot to mention that after I read the very helpful note about the temperature of the coconut milk and water mixture, I heated mine to only 100 degrees. Perhaps that's the problem with the many notes here that didn't rise, turned out like doorstops. Obviously the high temp would kill off the yeast. Having an instant-read thermometer is essential for this kind of baking. I proofed in a 79-81 degree oven (closed door with light on) and minded the temp of any liquid in the starter and levain.

This was an epic fail. I tried twice, and in both cases the original levain failed to double, though I was using a mature sourdough starter. I went ahead in Take Two, ignoring the “flat” levain, and, as feared, the dough never increased in volume, even after 6 hours of resting in a warm room, and another 4 hours in Step 3. I followed the baking instructions and finally came up with a dense, sticky brick that had no “crumb.” I had to toss it. Why did the original levain fail to rise?