I have a go-to soft and fluffy milk bread recipe at 74% hydration that stays moist up to 2-3 days after. I wanted to make a chocolate version so I substituted 20g of the bread flour with Dutch-processed cocoa powder, other ingredients and baking process were kept constant.
While they turned out really yummy, I noticed this version dries out much faster compared to the plain milk bread. What could be the reason for this and are there any adjustments I can make so that it stays moist longer like the plain one?
Thank you!
I think cocoa powder can bind much more water than flour, and in addition it's suggested one shouldn't use milk when using cocoa. So you need to increase the hydration I think.
Useful discussion: https://food52.com/hotline/19632-using-cocoa-in-place-of-flour
Thank you for the tip, Ilya!
Several ways to go about it, either add an egg yolk, or a tablespoon or two of butter or coconut butter, or oil. Cocoa is very dry. One can also blend the cocoa with just enough applesauce to make a thick batter skipping the fat addition and then blending with the liquids.
Added 20g of shortening and it did the trick. It's now softer even the day after. Thanks so much!
You’ll also find that the tannins in cocoa tighten the gluten so increasing the hydration is useful to help counter that.
Benny
I can also probably add some water. Thanks Benny!