Chocolate Chip Croissant Sourdough Loaf

My Sourdough Journey - Meet Charlotte Munro

I've finally done it. After years of having absolutely zero interest in delving into the sourdough world, on a random day in July of this year, I decided that it was time, time to learn all the things I could about elusive sourdough.

In the past, if I was ever in the vicinity of someone talking about it, they might as well have been speaking a whole other language. I really just didn't understand - I now realize that it was because at the time, I just didn't care about what was being said so I didn't want to understand.

And now? I'm all the way in. So let me start by introducing to you Charlotte Munro aka "Charlie"

Charlie was created/born on June 17, 2006. I feel as though she put me through some tests in the first week, wondering if she was alive or dead. Every day was a different scene. The picture above, she is about a week and a half old and when she started to truly show signs of life.

At that time, I not so secretly made a tester loaf even though I knew she was no where near ready. One of my brothers was visiting from out of town and used to make Sourdough for a living, so I wanted him to be there for my first loaf. Let's just say it was a loaf. It did have a decent crumb for what it was working with, but there were definite signs that she was absolutely not ready. 

I kept feeding her for the next couple weeks and decided that she was ready. Her first real attempt was a jalapeno cheddar loaf. 

Is it perfect? Nope, not even a little. Did it taste good? Yes it did. I used a sharp cheddar and jalapenos from my garden and it was delicious.

Her crumb looks decent and the ingredients were spread out fairly even. For my first official loaf, I'd say I did pretty well.

Notes to myself: Trusting the dough and not the clock is definitely a learning curve. 

Score 8/10

My second loaf of the week was maybe a little to intermediate for a newbie, but I'm stubborn and wanted to try this so badly.

Pictured is a chocolate chip croissant sourdough loaf that is still surrounded by parchment paper and still in the dutch oven.

I made a Chocolate Chip Croissant loaf. First impression, I was shook. I was so happy with how she looked still in the dutch oven, but then...

A chocolate chip croissant loaf that has be sliced in half to show the crumb and the chocolate speckled around inside.

I took her out and she was a lil flat and the chocolate chips seemed to vanish. Taste wise, it was ok. The bites with chocolate were amazing, so next time I will add much more and try and add more evenly.

Notes to myself: Mix chocolate chips in during 3 and 4 stretch and folds.

Score 7/10

This week, I wanted to try different cheeses and see how they work within a loaf. Cheddar was already delicious, but I wanted to try some different ones.

Four different mini sourdough loaves. A cheese flight if you will. Bottom left is a Fontina with an Italia Sofrito loaf. Top Left is a chipotle garlic gruyere loaf. Top Right is a Smoked Gouda loaf and the bottom right is a goat cheese and guava loaf.
Even though they aren't the prettiest, they are the cutest. I wanted to do a cheese flight, so I invested in the mini dutch ovens and banneton baskets. Starting at the top left we have chipotle garlic gruyere, top right, we have smoked gouda, bottom right we have goat cheese and guava (my favorite of the 4) and bottom left we have spice rubbed fontina with an Italian sofrito mixed in. They were all so tasty and all so different. Now I have to make full loaves of them so that I can share with friends.

Notes to myself:  I definitely need to use some parchment under them and not try to score them after I've put them in the dutch ovens, that made it extremely difficult to score.

Score 9/10

Back to blog