Adventures in Brioche

[frogprincess]

I made my first brioche this weekend and I am hooked! I followed the recipe here http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2...ct-brioche.html but I did not use brown butter. Although my first attempt did not yield perfect a loaf (under baked) I was happy with the results but the buns turned out great.

I am already thinking about the next time I am going to be able to make this wonderful treat and the variations I want to try. The next time I make the attempt I am using to bake the buns in muffin tins rather than make loaves. I would also like to try adding some different flavors (cinnamon & raisin and orange)

Please post your experiences, favorite recipe sources and variations as I’d love to learn more.

Thanks!

[sugarseattle]

since my chives are poking up in the garden, i can only recommend one thing...goat cheese and chive brioche...it made my husband cry a little.

I use the cooks illustrated version. I find it very lovely, buttery and delicate. It's a dough, overnite rest, form, proof bake, so it's ideally suited for the ambitious brunch chef

[djyee100]

Try making brioche with orange zest and chocolate chips. It's decadent.

I also like a brioche with orange zest and golden raisins.

[LindaK]

Bump. I've been baking a lot of brioche lately, trying to find my favorite recipe. That means I've been eating a lot of brioche with butter or jam. Which was great, but pains aux raisins are better:

This was my first time making them. Really simple, actually, once you make the brioche--just add pastry cream and raisins. Perfect with coffee and the Sunday paper.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I've always been almost inordinately fond of pain au chocolat made with brioche dough and bittersweet chocolate - I form the brioche dough around a chunk of chocolate and then settle it into its mould and bake as usual (I use personal-sized brioche moulds). They come out sort of like chocolate explosion muffiny brioches - very yum.

[janeer]

Well I'm glad to see this bumped up but the question remains: what is the perfect brioche recipe? I have been searching for, oh, 35years, trying to replicate some I had in a little bakery in Carmel, CA, better than any I've had in France.

[heidih]

I suppose the perfect recipe depends on what you consider the ideal. My only brioche like constant is a James Beard recipe in the December 1979 Bon Appetit - Saucisson en Brioche . I think it is completely nontraditional but it remains in the hopper. Proofed yeast in 1/4 cup water. 2 c flour, 2 eggs and the yeast beaten with 1/2 cup melted butter and 3/4 tsp salt. A summer sausage was encased. It is surprisingly good. Any extra dough was made into little knots and was delightful.

[janeer]

I suppose the perfect recipe depends on what you consider the ideal. My only brioche like constant is a James Beard recipe in the December 1979 Bon Appetit - Saucisson en Brioche . I think it is completely nontraditional but it remains in the hopper. Proofed yeast in 1/4 cup water. 2 c flour, 2 eggs and the yeast beaten with 1/2 cup melted butter and 3/4 tsp salt. A summer sausage was encased. It is surprisingly good. Any extra dough was made into little knots and was delightful.

Now that does sound very good, if untraditional.

[LindaK]

During my current experimentation with brioche, I'm astonished at the variety of "authoritative" recipes. Not only do proportions of ingredients differ dramatically but basic techniques vary considerably. Start with a yeast sponge. NO! Dry ingredients first, then add eggs and softened butter. NO! Melted butter, then. NO!

You get the idea. Endless variations. And I think "perfect" is in the eye of the beholder. Some folks like brioche that's more like bread, others prefer the texture to be more like cake. Barely sweet or very sweet. That is the fun of brioche. Find your personal favorite.

One thing on which we can hopefully all agree. Most brioche recipes for home cooks are scaled for two loaves. And the dough seems to freeze very well. So it's easy to make a batch of dough, bake a loaf or get creative with half of it, save the other half for the next weekend. Last minute brioche, perfect.

[TheTInCook]

I might be trying the 'no knead' brioche from Ideas in Food this weekend. Will report back if I do.

[runwestierun]

I made the most amazing brioche of my life using duck eggs instead of chicken eggs. So delicious, so perfect. Tragically the ducks only lay in the spring here.

[LindaK]

Savory brioche, wow.

I reduced the sugar somewhat, and added the savory additions after the second rise. I wondered whether the sweet-savory combo might be odd. It was not, it was perfect.

A loaf and mini brioche w/ grated parmesan cheese:

Minis with chives and cracked pepper:

Both versions were hard to stop eating. If you make brioche and haven't played with savory versions, you must give it a try.

[DanM]

Argh!! I must now make some whole wheat brioche. I will challenge myself and use Peter Reinhart's rich brioche formula.

Dan

[lapin d'or]

I would second the use of duck eggs to make brioche, I have 3 girls who lay most of the summer and their eggs make superb brioche.

Love the look of the savoury brioche posts, must get baking!

[Jmahl]

Brioche we baked from a recipe from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Hertzberg and Francois.

Amazing. Give it a try.

[DianaM]

Second the Hertzberg and Francois recommendation. Can't say if it's the best, but it's so easy and convenient. I mostly used up the refrigerated dough for sweet brioches, but now that I saw LindaK's minis, I want to give savory inclusions a try.

[minas6907]

Here's a loaf I did today, it was my first time making a brioche, and a braided loaf at that. This was the formula from The Professional Chef from CIA. Pleased with the results, I didn't realize how much butter was in the dough, I always thought it was more egg rich.

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[DianaM]

That is one beautiful loaf, minas6907! I could tear into it right now!

[minas6907]

Why thank you! It was sort of weird making a dough like this after doing only lean breads for so long, not sure if I like work with it yet haha, it feels alot different. But the actual bread was far better then I was expecting, much tastier then what we use to get at the restaurant. I originally wanted to do a loaf in a own, but it was too small, so I just braided it and hoped it would look good :-)

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[Panaderia Canadiense]

I had dough left over from deluxe cinnamon buns last night (a local restaurant expressly asked me for the brioche-type buns), and that meant brioche au chocolat for me! Even luckier, I had a bar of milk-chocolate macadamia nut just sitting there not doing a whole lot..... It was also an excellent dry-run for my new silicone brioche moulds - which I can now say I completely love and will be buying more of! They're 6-up "pans" which actually makes my life a whole lot easier.

Here's what one looked like last night just before I crammed the whole thing in my mouth and made conspicuous *nom nom nom* noises. Have I mentioned that brioche is probably my favourite bread-type product?

This morning I slowed down a bit, gave my brioche 30 seconds in the nuker to liquid up the center, and actually took a photo of an open one. This is what I meant above by "chocolate explosion muffiny brioche."

For the curious, I use a dough that's 3:1 ap white wheat : gold pea flour, 2.5 C warm milk with .5 C panela, 1/2 oz of yeast, and 4 tbsp of butter, with three warm rises and a milk-ginger sugar wash both before and after going in the oven. I see no need for eggs; this dough comes out beautifully soft and slack without them, and is very rich tasting despite its relatively low butter content.

[JeanneCake]

Has anyone ever made a chocolate brioche? Not brioche wrapped around a lump or baton of chocolate, but a chocolate throughout brioche. I can't find my copy of Emily Luchetti's Classic Stars Desserts where she had a chocolate caramel brioche bread pudding....and while I love the brioche bread pudding I make now, I'd love to do a chocolate version where the bread is chocolate, not the liquid.

[DianaM]

Just saw today Anna Olson make a chocolate brioche with hazelnut filling. You could try making the brioche only, see where that takes you. Recipe is here:

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/ontv/shows/bake-with-anna-olson/recipe.html?dishid=12692&titleid=272497

Please share your results, I'm curious too.

[LindaK]

If the weather wasn't near 100F (and I don't have AC chez moi), I had hoped to make the "marbled chocolate brioche loaf" from Nick Malgieri's The Modern Baker to bring to a weekend gathering. But even if i wanted to turn on an oven, I expect the butter would melt in the process.

But I will make it, when time and temperature allow, and report back. In addition to using chocolate, Malgieri's brioche technique is also untraditional, so I will be interested in the texture as well.

If anyone has already tried it, I'd love to know what you think.

[LindaK]

In honor of today's Fête Nationale in France and Marie Antoinette's famous pronouncement "qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (let them eat brioche), I tried my hand at the marbled chocolate brioche. Aside from leaving it the oven a bit too long, it turned out well--it was quite delicious.

Apologies for the lousy picture.

[LindaK]

I got up earlier than usual this morning to bake something good for breakfast.

Craqueline: brioche filled with chopped candied oranges, topped with a crunchy-yet-tender almond crust. Very good.