Alaska Homestead Kitchen Ep.1 | Sourdough Chocolate & Cherry Loaf

So we love sourdough on the homestead and we figured we would do a weekly sourdough recipe to share with you all when we make our weekly loaf. And today we're going to do a chocolate cherry sourdough loaf and show you how we make it. So it all starts the same way with my simple sourdough loaf recipe. I just take half a cup of starter, a good healthy half a cup. So I have my active starter here. I fed this later last night, but you'll see on the inside, it clings to the side and it's nice and bubbly and beautiful. I'm going to take a good, maybe half a cup to a cup of this starter as my first step and mix it with a couple cups of water. And once the starter and water is all mixed in together, I'm going to add a good tablespoon of salt and also a little bit of honey. So I'm maybe going to do like a quarter cup of honey here to kind of sweeten the whole loaf, but you could sub out maple as well. I just like honey. You want to make sure everything's all incorporated. I find that the more this is all mixed in with the water, um, or the better it's all mixed in with the water, the better the loaf turns out. And now for my honey and I just eyeball this. Next, I'm going to just add in about four cups of all purpose flour and just mix it until a shaggy dough forms. To the flour, I'm also going to add a little raw cacao. You could also do cocoa powder, maybe a quarter cup as well. As soon as this dough just kind of comes together, then this can go rest for about an hour and a half. And then I will do my first stretch and fold, wait a half hour, and then I'll do another stretch and fold at which time I'm going to add my dried cherries and my chopped up white chocolate and my dark chocolate. It's okay if it's kind of on the wetter side. I like to put this by the wood stove or somewhere kind of warm. So all my kitchen towels are being washed right now. So I'm just going to use the stockpot lid, pop that on there, and then put this in a warm place. And I'll see this in about an hour and a half. Okay, it's been about an hour and a half. I'm going to do my first stretch and fold. And I like to do about four stretch and folds each time. And then I will slightly wet my hands because it makes the dough easier to handle. I just kind of gather it up on one side at a time, pull the dough up and flip it over itself. And then I rotate it, gather it up again, pull the dough up. There we go. And last time. There we go. Okay, that's it. Then this is going to rest for another half hour. On my next stretch and fold, I will add in my dried cherries, my chocolate chips, and some of my white chocolate. All right, it is time for our second stretch and fold. I am going to throw in our white chocolate, our milk chocolate, and some dried cherries when I do it. You can also add in any inclusions when you shape the dough, but I like to do it during my stretch and fold. Okay, we are ready to shape this dough. I like to kind of lightly wet the work surface, lightly wet my hands, and then I will put it out on the counter, fold it in thirds, and then sort of use the edge of my hand to create a little tension and form a ball. Thanks, Leen. This is giant chocolate. Okay, this is going to rise for about an hour and a half. When it gets to an hour, I'm going to start preheating my oven to 450 with my Dutch oven in there. Where'd Tucker go, huh? He run off? Okay, it has been about an hour and a half. I am going to dust this loaf with some flour, then score it and pop it into my hot Dutch oven, 20 minutes with the lid on and 20 minutes with it off. Okay, it's been 20 minutes. I'm going to pop the top off. All right, this smells really good. It smells like a brownie. I think this is done. The good thing about the parchment is you can just pick it up and put it on your cooling rack. It's huge. Smells really good. Okay, we are going to let this cool and then try a piece for dessert. Okay, we are ready to cut this double chocolate cherry loaf. Oh my goodness. It's just smothered with chocolate and white chocolate. It's like full of white chocolate. Do you want to try a bite, Leen? Here, try a bite. Give me your honest opinion. Good? I'll take it. She takes it plain. All right, so it's pretty chocolatey. Good? It has some flavor. It has some flavor. All right, you want to try a bite, Jen? That's like a chocolate cinnamon raisin. That's a really good loaf. I like this loaf. It's almost a brownie. Yeah, it's almost a brownie. That's what it is. Yeah, the cherries are really good. Cherries give it a good tang.