Course Instructor
Brioche is a classic French bread rich with butter and eggs, boasting a golden, thin and soft crust with a silky, fluffy, and tender crumb which peels apart in beautiful shreds. The uniqueness or bizarreness of the brioche is the quantity of butter and eggs it uses – approximately 50% of the total flour! It would be fair to consider this a cross between pastry and bread. It is rightly considered a celebration bread.
“With enough butter anything is good” and I cannot agree more with the legend Julia Child!
Brioche is versatile. It could be a desert if more sugar is added or I also like to bake a savory brioche with bacon and chives. But, I normally prefer to add one aromatic or flavor-influencing ingredient that masks the eggs. This recipe uses some homemade orange marmalade. It already has cinnamon and ginger, so one can only imagine how my house smells right now! Well, you could also use any other preserves handy at your home or a good quality vanilla extract.
Note – Refrain from using store-bought jams though. Something about the texture puts the dough off track.
I suppose I have got you drooling.
However, the challenge lies in handling a dough this heavily loaded with fat! While the extra butter and eggs are why brioche is so delicious, they also hinder gluten and dough development. Hence, strong bread flour and a stand mixer are almost non-negotiable. I have used TWF’s Series C #8318. It is a strong bread flour specially crafted for enriched breads like – brioche, panatonne and cinnamon rolls. Apart from these, there are a few handling and processing tips and tricks that will help you bake an amazingly soft, aromatic, and melt-in-mouth brioche bread without much hassle!
Let’s start with the recipe then…
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