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Soft and Golden Brioche

Updated: Jun 21, 2020



Brioche is a French patisserie, it's essentially a highly-enriched white bread loaf with a much higher egg and butter content. It is much softer than a white bread loaf and slightly puffy with a golden crust.

In France, Brioche is served at breakfast but also as a sweet snack in the afternoon. It can also be a basis for a dessert.


This brioche has the right balance of sweetness, has an amazing spinning crumb and is light, airy and super moist. There is a lot of butter in the recipe but it is important because it makes the brioche so moist and prevents it from being dry and dense.



I chose to do a brioche in a tin because it really looks stunning with the little balls of dough all risen to form 1 loaf and the little touch of sugar pearls and the golden egg-wash that makes it stand out. To achieve a super airy brioche, the secret is simple: all you need to do is let the dough rest so the time I say in the recipe is the minimum time to achieve a perfect brioche.



I didn't have pearled sugar nibs so I made some, it's really quick and easy to do but you can buy them at the supermarket if you prefer. The recipe can be found on the blog or here.


Equipment needed:

  • A stand mixer, mixing the ingredients by hand and then kneading the dough requires a lot of strength but it's still possible.

  • A pastry brush is really useful and will be needed a lot for the times when you will coat the dough in egg wash. You could use the back of a spoon but it's less easy.



Ingredients:

For the dough (makes 2):

  • 600 grams of plain flour + extra if needed

  • 8 g of salt

  • 60 grams of caster sugar

  • 6 grams of dried yeast or 12 grams of fresh yeast

  • 4 eggs

  • 50 ml of Luke-warm milk (full fat or semi-skimmed)

  • 250 grams of butter, ultra-soft

  • 1 egg for the egg wash.

  • 75 grams of sugar rocks -> Recipe here



Instructions:

  1. Heat the milk and then mix in the dried active yeast to bloom it. The temperature of the milk should be between 28-31° C.

  2. Place the flour + sugar + salt + eggs + milk with activated yeast in the stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix for 5-10 minutes until the dough comes off the sides of the bowl all by its self.

  3. Then you can add the butter bit by bit, this will take about 5 minutes.

  4. Mix for another 5 minutes or until the dough comes off the sides of the bowl.

  5. Leave the dough to rest for 3 hours or even better, overnight in a warm place but make sure the temperature doesn't go ever the temperature of 28° or the butter will melt out of the dough.

  6. Punch the risen dough and then cover in cling film and leave in the fridge for 2 hours.

  7. Take the dough out of the fridge and separate into 8 different pieces.

  8. Take each piece and roll into balls. Take a buttered loaf tin and place the balls inside.

  9. Leave the dough to rise for 2-3 hours.

  10. Preheat your oven to 180°C.

  11. Beat your egg until it loses its "egg consistency" and become more like a milk consistency.

  12. Place your pearled sugar nibs onto the 2 plaited doughs and brush the egg wash on with a pastry brush.

  13. Cook in the oven for 35-40 minutes, taking the brioche out every 8 minutes to brush on more eggs wash until all of the egg wash is used. This will make an amazing golden crust.



Your brioche is ready!! Enjoy it while it's there because they get eaten so quickly!


Before you leave, don't forget to:

  • Check out the new Baking Glossary on the blog if you are unsure of any baking terms.

  • Subscribe to receive notifications when another post goes up.

  • Tag me on Instagram if you recreate a recipe from the blog, @decadent_foodblog to get a shoutout.

Bye Xxx


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