If you are a regular follower of my food posts, you have probably noticed the number of times I mention “Great British Bake Off” – it has really influenced the amount of baking I have done (especially breads). I have made pretty successful breadsticks a few times as well as a yummy plain white loaf twice. I had a sense of empowerment and inspiration, so believed it was time for something more adventurous!

This is where the chocolate couronne’s story begins.

I had saved the decadent sweet dough recipe back in November of last year. It was always taunting me in my flagged emails, but I never had the courage or the time to get all the ingredients. I made a plain loaf instead since it was simple.

I also didn’t want to make the apartment too disturbed with proving for hours with the oven open and making it hotter than it already was..it can be quite stuffy.

The opportunity arose while on break! I am at my moms, who has better mixing materials (aka an actual rolling pin, and a fancy mixer), and access to more ingredients. She had almost all of them already in her cupboard 😮 It was a match made in heaven, or so I thought..

I followed this recipe to the T. The bread was turning out well (first prove wasn’t twice the size but it grew enough). The filling was where I got stumped 🤔 It simply says to mix the chocolate and dry spices together into a smooth filling – but I knew you couldn’t mix chocolate unless it was somewhat melted. The key word being “somewhat.“

My chocolate became a soup and I had already mixed in the nuts and cinnamon so I tried to set it, but wasn’t patient enough. Thirdly, the bread couldn’t roll into a thin enough rectangle to be filled (probably something to do with the first prove).

I adapted and just rolled it up then made it into a more basic circle. Then it was time for the second prove..this was far too long and successful! The bread was so big that the filling had come out the edges.

But it was time to bake and after 4 hours, I still wanted to create a loaf. It got burnt on top since the filling was exposed and the bottom got burnt because I didn’t check on it.

I understand that this loaf was way more complex, but things went wrong from the beginning ha. I have watched the Bake Off episode in which they create a couronne to see any tips. One of the bakers had a similar issue with her filling spilling out, and she covered it with foil in the oven. So next time couronne, I will be more prepared! 🙂