I didn’t think I needed this chocolate sourdough starter either, but I can confirm that it will make all your chocolate desserts that much more chocolatey. I promise you, it is incredibly simple to make and maintain!
I’ve used this chocolate starter to make sourdough chocolate milk bread a couple times. I’ve made these sourdough hot chocolate cookies and chocolate sourdough shortbread with it, and yes I can confirm the recipes work with both regular and chocolate starter discards. You can use it in every single chocolate dessert you make with sourdough discard for an additional flavor boost.
Key ingredients
🍫 Cocoa powder is the number one key ingredient, of course! I always use dutch-process cocoa powder in all my chocolate desserts so that’s what I have in my pantry and that’s what I use to make this chocolate sourdough starter.
I can’t give you my recommendation regarding natural cocoa powder because I haven’t tested this starter with it. And I hesitate to give you an a-okay because natural cocoa powder is acidic whereas dutch-process cocoa powder is neutral. I suspect the chemistry would affect the starter differently. When I have a chance to test, I’ll report back with the results.
I use just a teaspoon of granulated sugar in this starter to encourage activities. Sugar is food to yeast whereas cocoa powder does the opposite – it actually slows down yeast activities.
How to make it
Well, simply enough…
1. Add ingredients to a jar
When you’re making this starter for the first time, you’ll use an active regular starter to seed it. Once you’ve made it, you can discard and feed it as you would your regular starter.
2. Mix well
Now cover the jar slightly and let it rise in a warm spot. It should be ready within 12 hours.
Tips for maintenance
I absolutely DO NOT feed my chocolate starter everyday. And to be honest, I don’t even do it everyweek! The simple truth is that I don’t bake chocolate bread or chocolate desserts that often, so I feed this guy when I need to use him.
What I found really interesting about this chocolate sourdough starter is that it is super resilient, more so than my OG starter. One, after it peaks the first time, it will maintain its peak for another 12 hours-ish. It will kinda rise and fall and rise and fall for a while. So many times, I don’t start my bread dough until well after it’s already peaked and my bread still turns out just fine.
Two, usually, after the first rise, your starter will be considered discard, right? Well not this one. I will keep the chocolate starter “discard” in the fridge, and the next time I bring it out, give it a good mix, it will rise the second time! I think this is because the cocoa powder + fridge temp slows down yeast activities so much that there will still be enough food for it after a full rise + a whole week.
So how do I maintain this guy? If you want to stick to an easy maintenance routine so you don’t completely forget to feed him. I’d recommend a weekly or bi-monthly schedule.
- Keep your chocolate starter in the fridge.
- When it’s time to feed, take it out and let it rise in a warm spot until it peaks – give or take, don’t worry too much about perfect timing. Give it half a day to ferment at room temp and call it good.
- Discard but don’t throw it away, bake bread or save it for brownies and cookies, the discard will last a month in the fridge!
- Save 10 grams and follow the recipe 👇.
- Immediately store in the fridge – this helps slow down yeast activities allowing you to go much longer between feeds.
- Repeat the process.
And if you don’t want to maintain one, just make it once, use it all and be done with it. You can always make more the next time you want to use it as long as you maintain a regular sourdough starter.
Chocolate Sourdough Starter Recipe
Equipment
- Kitchen scale
- Jar
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 10 grams active sourdough starter
- 50 grams bottled water no tap!
- 50 grams flour good quality AP or bread flour
- 6 grams (1 tablespoon) cocoa powder dutch-process
- 5 grams (1 teaspoon) granulated sugar
Instructions
- To make this the first time – Use 10 grams of an active regular sourdough starter that you maintain. Mix the starter with the rest of the ingredients in a jar using a spatula until thoroughly incorporated. Cover slightly and allow to ferment at room temperature until ready to use. It should be ready within 12 hours.10 grams active sourdough starter, 50 grams bottled water, 50 grams flour, 6 grams cocoa powder, 5 grams granulated sugar
- To maintain the starter – Discard as you would a regular starter, use it to bake bread or make a sourdough discard treat. Use 10 grams of your chocolate sourdough starter, mix it with the rest of the ingredients as in step 1. Let it ferment at room temperature or in the refrigerator to lengthen time between feeds.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
