Brioche or the eternal yeast struggle
I think that – looking through my blog and the failures I’ve had sofar with yeasty recipes – that it is pretty clear that I have some work to do in that area. When Anuradha of Bakerstreet contacted me to ask if I was willing to post something in her bread series I had to laugh a little. Out of fear mostly but also because she must have guessed that I wanted to get better at it!
I love An’s blog and her muffin series is second to none. If you want any tips on how to make perfect muffins be sure to check out her blog plus it has some other great recipes as well.
The perfect opportunity it seemed to work some more on my yeast issues. Well, what can I say; it was not entirely successful, mostly due to really bad planning on my part plus the fact that I can be too impatient when it comes to lengthy processes that require me to wait for hours for something to rise (or not to rise)
The recipe was graciously given to me by the fabulous Esmee from Es Factory. A Dutch blogger who is definitely much better in making bread then me. The brioche was delicious but read all about the (mis) adventures of the brioche on Bakerstreet!
Rich mens brioche
Ingredients
- For the pre-dough:
- 65 gr flour
- 9 gr of dry yeast
- 115 gr milk
- For the dough:
- 5 large eggs around 235 gr, roughly mixed
- 456 gr flour
- 36 gr of sugar
- 10 gr salt
- 456 butter at room temperature in small pieces
- Extra: 1 egg stirred to coat the dough before baking
Instructions
- Pre Dough: Make a wet dough by mixing all the ingredients together. Stir everything well so all the flour is desolved in the milk. Put plastic over the bowl and leave to stand for at least 20 minutes. The pre dough has to rise and should collapse when you tick the bowl.
- Mix the predough with the eggs until it is a smooth mass.
- In another bowl mix the flour with the sugar and the salt.
- Now the next part is easiest done with a kitchen aid or other foodprocessor but can be done with a wooden spoon. Mix the flour mixture bit by bit with the eggs. Blend every step before adding the next. Everything should be blended well. This takes about 2 minutes.
- Now leave the dough to relax the gluten for about 5 minutes.
- Mix the butter in, in four parts. Make sure each part is completely mixed with the dough before adding more butter.
- Leave the machine on to turn for an additional 6 minutes. Scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl if needed. The dough will be soft and very sticky.
- Grease a baking tray with oil and put the dough on it. Form this into some sort of rectangle (roughly 15 by 20 cm) Cover the dough with clingfilm that is also coated in some oil. Put this in the fridge and leave there for a minimum of 4 hours, but better overnight.
- Shaping:
- Form the dough when it is really cold, if it heats up put it back in the fridge. This much will make about 14 to 16 mini ‘Petit Brioches a tete”, or 2 to 4 large ones. Coat the surface of your workbench with a little flour before you start shaping.
- You can also form a normal sized bread. This will be enough for 3 of them.
- Don’t forget to grease the tins before putting the dough in. The tins should be filled roughly half, since the dough will still rise.
- RISING
- Cover the bread or the buns with greased clingfilm. They should rise so much that they fill almost the entire tins. Small buns will rise quicker then large ones. Depending on the temperature this should take about 1,5 to 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 200 C for small buns and 180 C for large breads.
- When they almost fill the tins, coat them with the extra egg. Cover again and leave to rise for an additional half hour before popping them into the oven.
- Bake them until golden brown. This should be 15 to 20 minutes for small buns and 35 to 50 minutes for large breads.
- Remove immediately from the baking tins once out of the oven. Leave to cool!
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
