Braving Brioche

They say you should do one thing every day that scares you.  Well, this week we are jumping ahead to the letter H in the A-Z of cooking and I am doing something that terrifies me.  The reason for the leap from E to H and the sudden boldness on my part will become apparent in the next post….Huh…instead of a cliff hanger ending I think I just gave you a cliff hanger starting!  Anyway, want to know what scares me?  That third episode of Limetown still makes me shiver  but cooking wise, one of the things that frightens me is bread.

And not only did I made bread this week but ooh la la, I made French Bread!  Brioches to be exact.  And they were very good!  They looked kinda like brioches, they smelled like brioches, and they tasted like brioches!  I cannot tell you how pleasantly surprised I was because the manner of making seemed odd.

I have never made brioche before but maybe, possibly this is how it is done.  It seemed to work!

You made your bread dough then divided it into 12 pieces which you rolled into balls.  Then you pinched off a small ball of dough from each of those so you then had  24 balls, 12 small and 12 larger.  The recipe then called to make a hole in the large ball and stick the small ball inside.  I found it easier to flatten the large ball and wrap it around the small ball.

Then into the baking pan for a rest and rise:

Add a glaze, pop in the oven and a short while later:

BRIOCHE!!!!

If I’d known brioche was going to be this easy I would have been making it for years!  I love that high shine glaze!  And to copy a phrase I learned from the Great British Bake Off, the bread also has “good crumb”.

Even though I had specifically made these for another purpose, I couldn’t resist having a little taste.  Brioche and apricot jam for afternoon tea?  Yes please!

As for the rest of them?  Stay tuned.  You’ll see in a couple of days!  And it’s worth the wait!  Meantime, get your brioches ready!

Brioche

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 tbsp plus 1tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp hand hot water
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 200g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 50g butter, melted and cooled

Egg Glaze

• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp water
• pinch of sugar

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Instructions

1. Dissolve 1/2 tsp of sugar in the water. Sprinkle over the yeast and whisk it in with a fork. Leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes or until the mixture is frothy.
2. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Mix in the rest of the sugar, the yeast mixture, the eggs and butter.
3. Mix by hand until the mixture leaves the side of the bowl.
4. Knead on a lightly floured board for 5 minutes.
5. Put the dough in a warm place and leave to rise for about 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size and springs back when lightly pressed.
6. Preheat your oven to 230C.
7. Divide the dough into 12 portions. Break off a small bit of each portion and roll into 12 small balls.
8. Roll the remainder of the portions into 12 larger balls.
9. Poke a hole in each of the larger balls with your finger and place the small ball inside. Close the hole by pressing the dough together.
10. Place the balls in your baking tin and leave to rise for about an hour or until light and puffy.
11. Mix the ingredients for the egg glaze together and brush over the brioches.
12. Place in your preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Have a great week!