Brioche

Somehow it never occurred to me to attempt baking brioche bread, even though I do LOVE a good brioche...who doesn't? Eggy, rich and fluffy goodness, serious good eats in the bread "community" haha! So I tell myself, why not come up with a good recipe that I can always go back to when I yearn for a good Brioche. And so this happened:

Brioche is such a versatile bread, it can be eaten as is of course. And it's good even the next day, lightly toasted with that Enchire butter that we all love. Or top it with ham and poached egg, and you have a lovely cafe style meal right at home, no need to waste money! Ahhh...the beauty of home baking and cooking, endless. ;)

Note that I use pre-fermented dough in this recipe to enhance the bread texture. This pre-dough can be made days ahead and kept frozen until you need it. Just remove it 30 minutes prior to using it to let stand till room temperature.

Recipe for Brioche Bread (makes a 9x5" loaf as seen above, 3 mini buns and a braided bun) 

Pre-fermented dough recipe

250g bread flour

160ml water

3g instant dry yeast

1g salt

• Knead everything together till it forms a soft pliable dough. No need to be smooth. Divide dough into 50g or100g portions depending on your needs and let chill in fridge up to 12 hours. Alternatively store in freezer up to 3 months.

Main Dough recipe

100g preferment dough
4 eggs  (~200g in weight without shells)
400g bread flour
4g instant active dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
100ml fresh milk
50g caster sugar
30g unsalted butter, room temperature 

• Knead all ingredients of the main dough together, except the butter. Add pre-fermented dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter. DO NOT be tempted to add more flour, if you do, the bread will not be as soft and fluffy.
• Knead until stretchable and pass the window panel consistency. Okay what is window panel consistency? It's how elastic the dough is and how much gluten it has developed after all that kneading. Look at the below picture to see how thin and elastic the dough has become. It is thin enough that you can almost see through it and yet doesn't tear open.
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•  Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with cling wrap and let it prove for 30-45minutes till double.
• To make the loaf: After 45minutes, punch out the air. Weigh out 3 portions of 200g of the dough. Roll round and set aside for 10 minutes, covered.
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• You should have around 300g of dough left. You can use your creativity and shape any kind of bread you fancy. Or if you just want simple buns, just divide them into 6 equal portions. Flatten each portion with your hands to drive the air out. Roll it into round shape, cover and let rest for 20 minutes before shaping. 
•  For the loaf, take one of the dough portion, flatten it till it becomes a big ovalish disc.
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• Then roll it up starting from the long side in till it becomes like a long pole. Pinch and seal the edges.

• Repeat for the rest of the dough portions. You will then have 3 poles like dough, about a feet long. Then pinch the tip of each portion together, then start braiding it, like how you would tie your daughter's hair, haha.
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• Braid it as tight and neatly as possible, it should look like this once you are done.

• Next you gently tugged in both ends so the dough is twice the thickness.
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• Gently place the dough into the greased loaf pan. Let it prove for about 45 minutes or until the dough has risen to 80 to 90% of the depth of the loaf tin. You can either cover the lid or bake it open top. I omitted the egg wash usually, but feel free to brush some egg wash if you like.
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•  You can again braid the remaining dough by dividing it to 100g each or just make buns like  suggested earlier. Have fun shaping them!
• Once the dough has proved, bake in 175C for 30 to 35minutes for the loaf, 12-15 mins for buns, till golden brown.

You can never have too much of a good brioche. You can freeze portion of the bread if you think you can't consume all in the next 3 days. Just toast or steam the bread when you are ready to eat them, they will taste just as awesome.

Ah...the joys of slicing into the bread and seeing how nicely baked it is, love. Thin crust, yet very nicely browned on the outside, with the loaf properly risen inside...the way I like it!

 Am I the only one that is obsessed with this lovely baked top? Haha, guess you need to actually bake a loaf yourself to understand what I'm feelin....baker's obsession!

 Okay, one last shot of this nice tall brioche before I call it quits for this post, haha! If you have an instagram account, do drop by mine @ig_Honeybeesweets to check out more cooking adventures there by yours truly.

 Okay folks, have a great weekend! And happy baking yo!