Chocolate soda bread (delicious, easy and no-knead)

Do you want to make a bread just by mixing a few ingredients? No kneading or baking-dough knowledge! This is the perfect quick bread recipe, today in the form of chocolate bread, but you can adapt it to your tastes and make it with olives, onion, spices... What will you make it with?

Ibán Yarza's soda bread recipe

One of Ibán Yarza's easiest and fastest bread recipes is the soda bread recipe. It's a perfect option! It's a bread that doesn't require kneading or waiting and you can enjoy it as is (and it really tastes great!) or you can use it as a base recipe to make a large number of delicious recipes: soda bread with chocolate, with onion, with olives, with oregano, Provençal, with zucchini, with cheese... The soda bread recipe opens up a world of possibilities!

The soda bread recipe uses chemical leavening, not baker's yeast, which adds gas to the mixture (it does not ferment it like active dry yeast does). That's why it's so quick to make: you just have to mix the indicated ingredients, all at once in a bowl, mix (not knead) and bake. Just like you hear!

Thus, the recipe that follows is Ibán Yarza's original, and the only ingredient I add is chocolate. Dare to try this bread with other ingredients. It's a perfect bite!

Ingredients

• 245 gr whole wheat flour
• 105 gr white flour
• 15 gr baking powder (about 3 level tbsp)
• 290 ml Water
• 35 gr Honey
• 7 gr salt
• 140 gr baking chocolate*

*I used about 140 gr of dark melting chocolate, but you can add more or less according to your preferences. Likewise, you can use dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate or a mix of them. Dare to try the chocolate you like best and you'll see how delicious it turns out!

Pallarès bread knife with mother-of-pearl handle and Bérard olive wood board

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 200 ºC
2. With a knife and a cutting board, roughly chop the chocolate and set aside.
3. In a bowl, add all ingredients except the reserved chocolate. With a large spatula, mix all the ingredients until combined (you can also do this with your hands, you only need to mix, not knead).
4. Once the mixture is done, you should obtain a dense but not compact dough. Add the chopped chocolate and mix until it is evenly distributed throughout the dough.
5. Prepare a perforated tray* (in this case I use the Le Creuset pizza tray, but you can use another one, or even a cast-iron grill). Sprinkle flour over the surface and pour in the batter. You'll see it stays fairly compact.
6. Sprinkle wheat flour over the bread and bake, on the 3/4 height of the oven at 220 ºC for the first 20 minutes (top and bottom heat), then reduce to 190 ºC for the remaining 20 minutes. If you see it starting to brown on top, place aluminum foil over it to prevent it from browning too much.

Notes

• *In the original recipe, it is proposed to bake the bread in a tall rectangular pan, giving the bread the shape of sandwich loaf or pound cake. You can also do it there, everything is valid! The delicious result in flavor will be the same.
• I often substitute part of the whole wheat flour with rye flour (about 100 gr). I like its more rustic flavor and the crust becomes a bit harder.
• This bread is best enjoyed shortly after taking it out of the oven, still warm and with the chocolate melted. The next day it's still tasty, but nothing beats enjoying it the same day.

Le Creuset pizza tray

WMF stainless steel bowl, Bérard wooden spoon, Revol textile salt jar