The quick bread challenge is a fun one and I should expect it may encourage many at home to try their hand at bread making. The first thing I thought about was soda bread but I wanted to try something different, a sweet bread. I wracked my brain and came up with these Quick Chocolate Dough-Knots.

Like with most bread recipes, there is nothing tricky about this and I really mean it. Once you’ve made this simple chocolate dough, it’s a matter of making the knot shape before baking and decorating. I would love you to try this recipe because it took me an hour and a half in total. This was another experiment and the first time I’ve ever delved into both chocolate breads (which caused a lot of laughter in my family, you’ll see why later) and making quick breads.

The hardest part is tying the knot which I unfortunately didn’t really do properly. Instead of doing a knot I tried doing a special folding method for a twisted doughnut and I didn’t follow the recipe properly so we have my version of the knot. I’ll provide the method for the twisted doughnut rather than mine (and because my hands were covered in dough, I couldn’t get a photo; amateur blogging mistake!).

Some other food bloggers have chocolate recipes to share with you:

The Explorer’s White Chocolate Cream Tart

All About Eats’ Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Connie Consumes’ Dark Chocolate Mousse

The Breakfast Tea’s Gluten-Free Buttermilk Doughnuts

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Chocolate Dough

375g plain flour

75g caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

100g dark chocolate

75g natural yoghurt

About 175ml whole milk

Chocolate Glaze

80g dark chocolate

20g margarine

2 tbsp golden syrup

Sprinkles

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Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment.

Sift the flour, caster sugar and baking powder into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

Melt the chocolate either in the microwave (my preferred method) or over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, add the yoghurt and 125ml of the milk, mixing until it is even. Add it all at once to the well.

Keeping your hand firm in a claw motion, move your hand around in one direction to bring the dough together, adding more milk if the dough feels dry. It should come together as a soft and pliable dough that isn’t sticky or too firm. Think of Playdoh texture. If the dough looks streaky, don’t worry as this gets fixed in the next stage.

Divide the dough into 12 equal portions; you can weigh it if you wish in lieu of Bake Off. Give each portion a small knead to shape into a ball and then roll out into a sausage 35cm long, making sure it is the same width.

Now cross both ends of the dough over each other, creating a circle, as if you’re forming the pink ribbon logo. With the circle closer to you, the right length of dough should be underneath the left length. Then pull the right length of dough over the top of the circle and attach the end to the bottom of the other side of circle. Next pull the left length around the bottom pushing it up through the first hole before attaching it over the other side on top of the circle. With that complicated step over, you should end up with 12 of these:

Now I know they don’t exactly look the most appetising but bear with me, they do get better. Brush them with milk and allow to rest for 5 minutes before baking for 15 minutes. Tap the bottom and it should sound hollow if it is ready. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

For the chocolate glaze, melt all the ingredients together either in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water in a deep bowl. This makes it easier to dip the Dough-Knots.

Take the Dough-Knots and dip the top half into the glaze, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Before it sets, cover with sprinkles.

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This is going to be my entry for Week 3 of the #BakeOffBakeAlong and you can find out more by visiting Amanda or Ala’s blogs.