Looking for a delicious way to start your day? Check out this chocolate bread recipe. Imagine toasted chocolate bread topped with peanut butter? Yum!!

Last Updated on June 20, 2022 – Originally Posted March 29, 2010

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I just made this today and it’s DELICIOUS!! It tastes so decadent without all the sugar of a sweet bread. This might be my new favorite chocolate fix. ~ Kristen

Chocolate Bread Recipe for the Bread Machine

Let’s talk about a decadent way to start your day.  I’m talking toasted chocolate bread topped with peanut butter?  Yes, it’s as good as it sounds.

Soften the Butter?

I’ve had people ask if they should soften the butter before adding to the bread pan.  The answer is that it depends.  

My Zojirushi has a preheat cycle.  So I cut the butter (straight out of the refrigerator with no softening) into 4 pieces and put one in each corner of the bread pan.  The machine warms all the ingredients before it starts kneading.

I don’t have an image of that for this recipe, but here’s how it looks for my buttery dinner roll recipe.

Homemade, Buttery Dinner Roll Ingredients in the Bread Machine

If your machine doesn’t have a preheat cycle consult the owner’s manual to see what it says about heating butter and liquids before adding them to the bread pan.

Don’t have a bread machine manual?  I have a list of online bread machine manuals for several types of machines.

Chocolate Chips

Note that this recipe calls for chocolate chips.

Different people will have different results with this recipe in terms of how much the chocolate chips melt.  It all depends on how hot your bread machine gets.  Also, if you use mini chocolate chips then they’ll melt more than the regular kind.

While we’re talking about chocolate chips, I’ve just got to share this.  I love history and the history of chocolate chips is tied to one of my favorite foods, chocolate chip cookies!

In 1937 Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. The cookies were a hit!   

Eventually, Nestlé found out about these cookies and developed chocolate chips to more easily work with the cookie recipe.  

The Add Beep

And here’s a tip for working with chocolate chips in this chocolate bread recipe. 

Technically speaking, the chips should be added at the add beep.  However, you don’t want the chips clumped all around the edge of the bread loaf.

Check out this image of raisin bread. 

The above photo is a close up of the manual that came with my machine.  I’m sure that they put the raisins in at the add beep. 

To avoid this, I add the “goodies” to the recipe at the very beginning.

 I’m just not satisfied with the mixing that occurs when things are added during the add beep.

How to Make Chocolate Bread in the Bread Machine

I make this recipe in my two-pound machine. Note that you’ll be using the basic cycle with the medium or light crust.

Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first.  (My Zo says to add the liquid ingredients first.) 

Check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading.  Just pop the top of the bread machine and see how the dough is doing. 

It should be a smooth, round ball.  If it’s too dry add liquid a teaspoon at a time until it looks OK.  If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK.  Most of the time though, the above amounts should be just right.

Chocolate Bread Recipe for the Bread Machine

Again, this makes a two-pound loaf. I recommend using the basic cycle with the medium or light crust.

1  3/8  Cup milk
1 Egg, lightly beaten
4  ¼ Cups bread flour
2 Tablespoon butter
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoon salt
2/3 Cup chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons active dry yeast