I love brioche. I love the salty, subtly sweet and buttery taste. But for some reason, picking it up from pastry and grocery shops, I am often disappointed because it’s either too sweet or too salty. Also, they are often overloaded with butter, just check your fingers after you have a slice. I believe there is a better balance for all this.
Last weekend I made my own brioche. It’s my first time making any bread that needs to rise overnight. If you don’t know, I tend to be pretty impatient so telling me to wait until the next day to enjoy the fruits of my labor sounds insanely long. But, but… now I know why breadmakers all say it’s well worth the wait!
Brioche is a French pastry bread that tastes good with both savory or sweet toppings, hence why I love this bread. It reminds me of Japanese milk bread because they both have similar ingredients. Perhaps Japanese milk bread is a bit sweeter and hence requires more sugar.
I read a dozen different recipes, and I followed the King Arthur Flour brioche recipe with “minor” adjustments to it. I don’t like using 100% all-purpose flour with no whole grain. Personally, I like to challenge the recipe by using 100% white whole wheat flour or switch out for some percentage of it. In this case, I changed the recipe to use about 30% whole-wheat flour, added an additional egg yolk, and reduced the butter by 20% to 8 tbsp. Here’s my modified recipe and instructions below.
Mix everything except butter in a mixer on medium-low for about 4 mins.
Then incorporate the butter one tbsp at a time and let that run on medium-low for about 15 mins.
Your dough will look pretty smooth and on the shiny side. It may be soft and stick a bit to the mixing bowl, but that’s fine.
Oil a separate bowl, place the dough inside, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rest for about an hour. It will rise and at least double in size.
(optional) Knead the dough a bit more, which will reduce its size and let it rise again for about 20 mins.
Now move it to the fridge for overnight rest. It will puff up a lot by the morning.
Next day, you can braid it however you like, there are so many youtube videos on this! I did a simple twist for one of them.
For the cinnamon filling brioche, roll the dough into a rectangle shape, brush it with butter, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mix, followed by hazelnuts.
This is how the cinnamon hazelnut filling inside-out twirl bread looks like
Once you are done braiding the bread, let it rest for 3 hours or until it doubles in size.
Brush with egg yolk + water mix and, optionally, sprinkle some sesame on top.
Pop into the oven (preheated to 350F) for 30 mins and enjoy the fragrance of fresh bread-baking smell! This is probably my absolute favorite part. ????
Ingredients
Directions
Mix everything except butter in a mixer on medium-low for about 4 mins.
Then incorporate the butter one tbsp at a time and let that run on medium-low for about 15 mins.
Your dough will look pretty smooth and on the shiny side. It may be soft and stick a bit to the mixing bowl, but that’s fine.
Oil a separate bowl, place the dough inside, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rest for about an hour. It will rise and at least double in size.
(optional) Knead the dough a bit more, which will reduce its size and let it rise again for about 20 mins.
Now move it to the fridge for overnight rest. It will puff up a lot by the morning.
Next day, you can braid it however you like, there are so many youtube videos on this! I did a simple twist for one of them.
For the cinnamon filling brioche, roll the dough into a rectangle shape, brush it with butter, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mix, followed by hazelnuts.
This is how the cinnamon hazelnut filling inside-out twirl bread looks like
Once you are done braiding the bread, let it rest for 3 hours or until it doubles in size.
Brush with egg yolk + water mix and, optionally, sprinkle some sesame on top.
Pop into the oven (preheated to 350F) for 30 mins and enjoy the fragrance of fresh bread-baking smell! This is probably my absolute favorite part. ????