Nutella Swirl Bread.

 

If you 'like' me over on FaceyB (I'm guessing you've heard of it? It's a place, a blue place, where you can spy on all the people you went to school with and upload pictures to pretend to all your hundreds of 'friends' that your life is just sooooo much prettier and more brilliant than all the other lives and you can show allll the people alllll the pictures of your baby even though noone asked to see 1 let alone 150) you may have noticed me issuing rather strict sounding 'advice' to make Nutella NOWWWWW 1. because it's just so damn wonderful, and 2. because I would soon be hitting you with some superspesh recipes that make it the star....I mean you can't eat the whoooole jar off a spoon (haha...I jest of course).

 

So I hope, for all our sakes, that you heeded my sound and wise guidance and Nutella-ed yourself right up, because here is a little gem of a fancy looking, but easy to execute, recipe that means breakfast will never be the same again.....you get your Nutella fix without eeeeeven needing to spread; the knife can stay in the drawer...well unless you want butter, which, of course, you absolutely do.

And oh gosh, I just had the most magical idea....WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT SOONER....I need to make a pain au chocolate with homemade Nutella....drop everything, that is what I'm off to do right this second....because the texture you get from Nutella baked into bread (bears repeating I think....Nutella....baked into bread) is similar to that in pain au chocolate...it goes from being drippy and spreadable to more of a paste....in the most scrumptious, chocolatey way.

So if you haven't done the 'likey' thing over on Facebook...you probably should, I'm not sure how you'll get on with the rest of your life if you miss such important nuggets and instructions as I enforce upon you there, you know 'make Nutella NOW' is pretty life or death...and if you're a star student and have a big jar of Nutella ready and waiting....ready, steady, BAKE. With Love and Cake.

Chocolate Swirl Bread.

A few notes:

• This is basically my regular white bread recipe with the added lovelyness of Nutella, but if you wanted something a bit richer, you could use a sweetened bread dough like the one I used for the Cinnamon Swirl Bread, just leaving out the cinnamon and sultanas.
• Do refer to my original bread post for all the tricks for yeasted success I've learnt along the way.

Makes 1 large loaf

You will need

A large-ish loaf tin or baking sheet, greased and lined 

500g strong white bread flour 

½ tsp fine salt 

2 tsps ‘Easy-Blend’ or ‘Active’ dried yeast 

300ml-ish of warm water 

Splosh flavourless oil (olive or veg or groundnut, whatever) 

2-3 tbsp Nutella

• First job...weigh out the flour into a big bowl and sprinkle over the salt. 
• Next, add the yeast to the water and give it a mix around to let the yeast dissolve a little. 
• Now pour around 2/3 of the yeasty water over the dough and with a spread out hand, start to churn it up and mix it in. Then keep adding the rest of the water, or even a little more if you need, until it all comes together and you have a ball of soft dough and a mostly clean bowl. It’s best to err on the ‘too sticky’ side, rather than the ‘too dry’ if you’re in doubt. 
• Put a fairly big blob of oil on a clean, dry surface and spread it out a bit with your hands. 
• Turn the dough out on top of the oil and fold the dough around in it so it is covered all over. 
• Knead for around 5 minutes; pushing and pulling it around and folding it on top of itself until it looks shiny and feels stretchy. Don’t worry if it sticks to the surface you are working on, it probably will a bit, just keep going and it will recollect any bits it leaves behind. 
• Now time to pop your ball of shiny dough back into the bowl and cover with a tea towel or clingfilm...or you could put a plastic bag over the top of the bowl like I do...or use a shower cap like the Hairy Bakers do. 
• Leave it in a cosy place for 1 to 1.5 hours; until it looks big and airy. 
• When risen and proud, scrape the dough out of the bowl with a big metal spoon, and flop it onto a floured surface. Fold it up a few times to knock the air out.
• Now, just using your hand, press  the dough out into a rectangle, about 35 x 23 cm.
• Spread Nutella all over the surface of the rectangle and then roll up like a Swiss roll from one of the short ends.
• Tuck the ends under to stop any Nutella leakage and then gently pop the dough into your tin or onto your baking sheet and leave for about 1 more hour, until it puffs up and about doubles in height. Do NOT forget about it at this point, I have, and what happens is that it gets big enough to burst, and then does and then siiiiiiiiinks. Booooo. 

• Preheat the oven to 220˚c. 
• Now you’re ready to bake. Pop your lovely loaf in the middle of the oven and leave for around 20-25 mins, until nice and golden and crusty looking.

• It’s ready when knocking it on its bottom, like knocking on a door, makes it sound nice and hollow.

• Cool on a wire rack, slice and toast.