Chocolate Butter Bread (1987)

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 package dry yeast
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbspn sugar
• 1 1/4 tspns salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 12 tbspns (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (into large pieces)
• 6 oz (6 squares) semisweet chocolate, chopped into large pieces

Put water in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Stir and allow to stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.

Add the flour, sugar, salt, and eggs to the yeast mixture, and beat vigorously until well blended. Beat in the butter in tablespoon-size pieces until it is all incorporated and the batter is smooth. cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the batter rise to double its bulk. 

Stir the batter down and add the walnuts and chocolate pieces. Spoon the batter into 2 greased 81/2 -x- 41/2 -x- 3-inch loaf pans. The pans should be half-full to the loaves will have nicely rounded tops when they finish baking. 

Bake in a preheated 350-degree over for about 45 minutes. Remove from the over, and allow to rest for 5 minutes, then turn loaves out onto racks.  

(Author note - "Chocolate Butter Bread also makes extraordinary French toast--- just be sure to dip the sliced bread into the egg only briefly so that the slices don't get soaked through.) 

More "Lost" Bread or Coffee-Cake Recipes

Butter-Rich Bundt Coffee Cake (1973)

Classic Chocolate Pound Cake (1963)

(Origin - "The Breakfast Book" by Marion Cunningham. Published by Alfred A Knopf, 1987.)