Brioche in pictures

[I82Much]

Mise en place

Sponge

Adding eggs, flour, salt to sponge

Mmmm butter - the recipe I used called for 2 sticks

Scraped into oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap

After first rise

Refrigerating overnight

Fresh out of fridge

Kneading a little more flour in

Divide into 3 sections

Refrigerate 2/3

Divide one third in half

Divide half in thirds

Shaping

Place in pans

before plastic wrap covering, final rise

Eggwash after rise

425 for 10, 350 for 15

Really wish I had more than 6 pans..

[andiesenji]

Beautiful!

[Patrick S]

Awesome! Thanks for taking the time to do this!

[emmapeel]

My Goodness, they look absolutely fabulous. Obviously, they were as good as they look, I'm sure. (Come on, tell us...) Thanks for taking the time to share the adventure with us.

[Fat Guy]

Fascinating. Can you let us know the formula you followed?

[I82Much]

The recipe is from Sherri Yard's Secrets of Baking, the "Master Brioche" recipe (or 'middle class' according to the lean/middle/rich dough classifications)

I would post it if not for copyright concerns.

edit: I adapted the technique from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's a bit of a combination of the two now. Particularly, I adapted the method of shaping the top knots (I odn't really have any good pictures of that part). Basically, you roll a portion of dough into a rope, but leave one end fat. Picture a snake with a big head I guess. Take the big part and make a hole with your thumb. Tuck the other end through the hole and make a bulb out of it (obviously my technique still needs some work as they're not evne close to uniform..)

I do add quite a bit of flour in all, probably a half cup to a cup - without it I find I can't work with the dought. It's fine if you're going to make a loaf out of it but It's too messy and wet to make the brioches a tets without the extra flour, IMO.

Edited March 12, 2005 by I82Much (log)

[glossyp]

The recipe is from Sherri Yard's Secrets of Baking, the "Master Brioche" recipe (or 'middle class' according to the lean/middle/rich dough classifications)

I would post it if not for copyright concerns.

edit:  I adapted the technique from the Bread Baker's Apprentice.  It's a bit of a combination of the two now.  Particularly, I adapted the method of shaping the top knots  (I odn't really have any good pictures of that part).  Basically, you roll a portion of dough into a rope, but leave one end fat.  Picture a snake with a big head I guess.  Take the big part and make a hole with your thumb.  Tuck the other end through the hole and make a bulb out of it (obviously my technique still needs some work as they're not evne close to uniform..)

I do add quite a bit of flour in all, probably a half cup to a cup  - without it I find I can't work with the dought.  It's fine if you're going to make a loaf out of it but It's too messy and wet to make the brioches a tets without the extra flour, IMO.

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Very nice work! I know brioche is labor intensive but your efforts were well rewarded. You might want to check out Vengroff's brioche (be sure to follow the link in the post to many pictures and extensive explanation) in the Baking with the Bread Baker's Apprentice thread (which has been lanquishing) for some helpful tips. Link to thread

[Chris Cognac]

That is awesome....It makes me want to try and bake!

[vengroff]

Since it's more about baking than the specific class I took last month, I'll repost the images here. These are brioche I made at home after taking a class at the Culiary Communion in West Seattle.

The process began the night before. The first step was to make the sponge from warm milk, yeast, and flour. Here's how it looks after about 30 minutes of fermenting.

The rest of the dough, consisting of butter, eggs, sugar, salt, and more flour is mixed seperately. Here it is just before addition of the sponge. It's already soft and wet, and the sponge will make it more so.

After mixing in the sponge, the dough has to ferment for an hour. Here it is before fermenting

And here it is after fermenting, in the same bowl

From there it was into the fridge to cool, firm up, and expand just a bit more overnight. Fast forward to this morning and the shaping. I don't have pictures of the process itself, since I only have two hands. Basically one forms a ball as if for a roll, then rolls a pinch into in so that you have the main body and the head formed, and connected by a thin strand of dough. Then you flatten the body, push a hole with your finger, stretch it open a pit and then pass the head up through it from below. The two piecese never seperate. Here's what they look like immediately after shaping.

Once shaped they are given an egg wash and them left to proof at room temperature for about an hour. Here they are just washed and starting to proof.

Now fully proofed they are ready for the oven

Twenty minutes later they are golden brown on the outside and creamy yellow on the inside.

Just in time for brunch.

As far as what might have gone wrong with yours, I'm wondering about whether or how long you proofed them in the pans before baking. In my case it was about an hour, at which point they nearly filled the pans. Not only were they larger, but they had come up to room temperature.

I shaped the dough when it was very cold from the fridge. I couldn't have done it at room temperature because the dough was so soft and wet.

I may make these again next weekend. If I do I'll make an effort to get some photos of the shaping technique.

[artisanbaker]

Great work everyone. I might offer an alternative to the above recipes: developing the dough to full development. I will provide a link with a picture of a fully developed dough. It will provide a lighter, more delicate texture than the above methods. Where I work now, we underdevelop the dough, so there is definately no right or wrong way, unless I work for you! :)

http://www.nzbakingsociety.co.nz/dean2.html

[I82Much]

http://www.nzbakingsociety.co.nz/dean2.html

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Thanks for the link- I have to write a rpeort on brioche and this will be most helpful

[vengroff]

I should have said more about what I did with the non-sponge part of the dough. My instructor's recipe calls for creaming the butter, then mixing in the sugar and salt, and then 1/3 of the eggs. This is followed by 1/3 of the flour, 1/3 more of the eggs, 1/3 more of the flour, 1/3 more of the eggs, and then the final 1/3 of the flour. In between additions, the dough is mixed on medium speed until fully combined. This gets some, but perhaps not all the development of artisanbaker's method. The picture above is after all the eggs and flour have gone in, but the sponge has not been added. The flour I used was 11.5% gluten.

As far as portioning, I used 35g (total for the single piece that become the head and body) for an 8cm diameter mold. This is a lot less than the 50g + 10g in the recipe on the link. What size pan is that for?