Checkerboard Toast

Mix the ingredients of the pre-dough into a dough, and place it in the refrigerator to ferment for 10 hours.

Main dough ingredients: bread flour, white sugar, milk powder, eggs, high-sugar-tolerant yeast, cocoa powder, salt, olive oil.

Cut the intermediate dough into small pieces and put them into a stand mixer. Then add bread flour, milk powder, eggs, high-sugar-tolerant yeast, sugar, and water, and knead slowly into a dough.

After adding salt, quickly knead the dough until it reaches a firm gluten state.

Then add olive oil, mix the oil and dough evenly at a slow speed, then quickly knead the dough until it can form a thin gluten sheet. Divide the dough into 2 portions, shape one portion into a round and place it in a bowl to ferment.

For the other portion, add cocoa powder and knead it evenly into the dough. I first used a stand mixer at low speed for 2 minutes, then took it out and kneaded it by hand to make it uniform, mainly to avoid overmixing. The cocoa dough is shaped into a ball and placed in another bowl to ferment.

Let the two types of dough ferment at room temperature.

The dough that has completed fermentation has increased in volume, and when tapped by hand, there is air inside the dough.

Divide all the dough into 4 equal portions, and let them rest for 10 minutes after rounding.

Roll out each piece of dough to release the air, flip it over, flatten the bottom, roll it up from top to bottom, and let it rest for another 15 minutes.

When letting it sit, cover it with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

Seal each piece of dough with the seams facing down, roll it out lengthwise, flip it over, flatten the bottom, and roll it up again.

Pinch the seal tightly, and if there are any air bubbles, you can poke them with a toothpick or something similar.

I used two 450-gram water cube loaf molds, with a total of 8 rolled dough pieces, placing 2 white doughs and 2 cocoa doughs in order (as shown in the picture) into the molds.

Place the bread dough in the oven using the fermentation function, add a bowl of hot water, and let it undergo a second proofing until it is 90% full. Preheat the oven, bake with top heat at 160°C and bottom heat at 180°C for 30 minutes, then bake at 150°C with both top and bottom heat for another 5 minutes before taking it out. After taking it out, tap the baking tray, remove the mold, and let it cool.

Here comes the favorite checkered toast.