French Brioche
FRENCH BRIOCHE
makes 1 loaf
A friend of mine who lives in Lyon, France shared with me this perfect brioche recipe, which I follow exactly and also use for my cinnamon bun recipe. The brioche is wonderfully light with a subtle sweetness and toasts up beautifully the next day.
Ingredients
3 cups + 1 tablespoon (370g) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 large eggs
1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon water
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter
All-purpose flour: 250 g
Bread flour 250g
Salt: 1 tsp
Granulated sugar: 4 tbsp
Active dry yeast: 1 tsp
Large eggs: 4
Whole milk: 160 ml
Water: 2 tbsp
Unsalted butter: 170 g 12tbsps
Directions
In your kitchenaid and using the paddle attachment, mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Add the milk/egg/water while the mixer is spinning on lowest speed.
Keep your mixer at a low speed as it starts to knead the dough.
Once the dough has formed a ball and nothing is sticking the the bowl of the mixer, add the butter with the mixer still on low.
Once there are no more visible pieces of butter, up the speed to medium and let the dough knead for about 6-8mins.
Stop the mixer, remove your dough and form a nice big ball. You can flour your counter but shouldn’t need too much. Place the ball in a big bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to proof at room temp for about 1 1/2 hours. OPTIONAL - preform a series of folds and turns with the dough by grabbing a corner of the dough and pulling into the center, 1/4 turn and repeat 3 times. Do this at 20-30 min intervals while it’s doing the bulk rise. I found this added some extra layering in the final baked brioche!
After the proofing put dough into fridge for several hours or pref. overnight.
Remove and form your brioche- I divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and shape them into little balls.
Grease the loaf tin and place your 6 pieces of dough back to back in the loaf pan.
Place a small bowl of boiling water in your oven (which should be turned off) so it provides some steam for the second prove of your brioche and let proof for 2.5 hrs or until nice and puffy
Preheat oven to 350 F. Egg wash the brioche and bake for 25 mins ish or until golden brown on top. Cool on rack.
A NOTE ON DOING A SOURDOUGH VERSION:
Swap out the instant yeast with 50g of sourdough discard or starter plus a small pinch of instant yeast and follow instructions above with one caveat. Rise times will be longer. This is will require being a bit more intuitive with the dough. You want the dough to increase in volume by 30% before resting in the fridge which means it could take several hours. Also the second rise in the loaf pan might take a little longer depending on how strong your starter was. Experiment!
