Brioche

Soft, fluffy ‘petit brioche en tête’ (transl. brioche with a head). Great stuff but a lot of work when you have to make it by hand (everything is done by hand at school). Especially with the heat at the moment. I was melting like a piece of butter today. You can do the recipe using the dough hook on your kitchen mixer, reduce the kneading time though.

Brioche

recipe taken from the Le Cordon Bleu Basic Pâtisserie manual

250g flour
6g salt
25 sugar
3 eggs
1 sachet of instant dried yeast or 11g of fresh compact yeast
12ml of warm milk
125g of cold butter, cubed
eggwash

makes 1 loaf or 12 buns

Mix the warm (not hot otherwise you will ‘kill’ the yeast) milk with the yeast and set aside. In a bowl add flour, make a well in the centre of the bowl. Add eggs and yeast into the ‘well’. Slowly combine. Once combined add salt and sugar. Knead for about 15-20 minutes or until the dough is elastic (like chewing gum). Add half of the cubed butter, continue to knead until incorporated into the dough (this can become messy, you need to work fast if you’re doing this by hand as your hands will melt the butter) then add the rest and continue to knead until you have a smooth elastic dough.

Leave to prove for 1 hour in a clingfilm covered bowl. Knock back and divide dough into 12 individual balls*. Shape the balls into a Russian doll shape. Push the head into the body. Place each brioche into a greased muffin tin or a small fluted brioche mould. Wrap and leave to rise overnight in the fridge.

The day after take brioche out of fridge, egg wash and leave to rise a bit while the oven is pre heating to 180°c. Put in oven, reduce heat to 160°c. Bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Best eaten while hot.

*If you’re doing a loaf, place dough in a greased loaf tin. Follow same instructions but bake for about 45 minutes.