whole wheat Nutella braid

This whole wheat Nutella Braid is rich and hearty while being good for you! Whole grain bread is swirled with chocolatey spread for a delicious treat.

Week 2 of PA school has officially kicked my butt. We just had our first exam this week over 9 different lectures we were given over just THREE days. Yeeep. They're not kidding when they say it's like trying to drink water from a firehose, y'all 😉 BUT now it's Friday so hurray! The best way to celebrate is with chocolate, of course. More specifically Nutella. In braided bread form. Here's to the weekend!

So I recently received a surprise package from my beloved King Arthur Flour with some of their brand new white whole wheat flour, which was the perfect excuse to make some bread! I don't usually use wheat flour, so I used one of their recipes which had lots of tips and tricks for getting a perfectly soft and delicious loaf. This delicious Nutella braid requires some planning ahead because before making your dough and letting it rise, you have to begin the process with a starter! This is something I had only ever done for my panettone, but I have to say it was so simple and the end results were so good!

While this bread was definitely delicious, I will say it was a bit too wheaty for my tastes so I will probably substitute in half all-purpose white flour next time! I will write the recipe for this Nutella braid as I made it this time, but feel free to substitute as much as you feel comfortable with traditional white flour to get it to your preferred heartiness 🙂 However, since the recipe does have a lot of whole wheat-specific tips I would suggest using a completely different dough if you're wanting to just use regular all-purpose white flour! I usually use this dough from my pumpkin butter braid for breads and cinnamon rolls and it works great.

If you are wanting to incorporate more white whole wheat flour in your baking, King Arthur Flour suggests using 100% white whole wheat flour for any recipe calling for whole wheat flour, substituting up to 50% in recipes using all-purpose flour, and starting by substituting just 25% of all-purpose flour in more delicate baked goods. Happy baking! { #lovewholegrains }

{recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour}

Print Recipe

whole wheat Nutella braid

Prep Time12 hours hrs

Cook Time1 hour hr

Total Time13 hours hrs

Author: Valentina | The Baking Fairy

Ingredients

• *for the starter*
• ½ cup cool water
• 1 cup whole wheat white flour
• ⅛ teaspoon instant or active dry yeast
• *for the dough*
• 2 ½ teaspoon instant or active dry yeast
• ½ cup lukewarm milk
• ½ cup orange juice
• 5 tablespoon melted unsalted butter
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoon white granulated sugar
• ¼ cup Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
• ¼ cup potato flour
• 2 ¾ cups whole wheat white flour
• *for the filling*
• ½-3/4 cup Nutella

Instructions

• First, prepare the starter. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, water, and yeast and mix until all the flour has been absorbed. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature overnight or up to 16 hours.
• Once the starter is ready, make the dough. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the starter with the yeast, milk, orange juice, dry milk, potato flour, melted butter, salt, sugar, and about 2 cups of the whole wheat flour
• Knead until a dough forms, then add more of the flour as needed for dough to not be sticky and easily come off the sides of the bowl. Knead 6-7 minutes on low speed {you can also do this by hand!}
• After kneading, transfer dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover, and allow to rise until it becomes puffy and 1.5x in size {about 90 min}. Note that it will not rise as high or as fast as white flour.
• When ready to make the dough, lightly flour your work surface, and roll the dough out to about 9" x 16". Spread Nutella all over the surface, then tightly roll up the long side {you want it to be 9" wide to fit in the pan}.
• You can put the bread in the pan as-is, OR to get the braided swirl effect, take a sharp knife and cut the rolled bread loaf in half length-wise. Rotate the dough so that the cut lines of Nutella face up, then gently overlap the two pieces to make a "braid."
• Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan, and put a piece of parchment inside to facilitate removal later. Carefully set the bread in the pan, and allow to rise one last time until the dough crowns over the edge of the pan by ¾"... remember it will rise more as it bakes, too!
• Preheat oven to 350F, and bake the bread for 10 minutes uncovered, then cover with a piece of foil and bake for 45-50 minutes longer, until the center registers 190F with a thermometer.
• Let cool slightly before handling, then remove bread from pan and brush the surface with more unsalted butter. Enjoy!