Brioche

If only it had had custard in it...

Brioche is a delicious enriched, French bread that tastes really buttery, even though this recipe didn't have that much butter in it :) It's usually served with jam, butter, or used to make French toast, but I there is no beating it with patisserie cream. The first time I tried it I almost died of food related joy, it was like heaven. The squishy, sweet bread combined with the cool cream, topped with sweet icing is one of the nicest things I've ever had. Whenever we get it it's gone in the same day. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how they get the custard in it! We usually buy it in Lidl so there's no one to ask about it in the shop. It comes in a foil container, the bread is quite flat - almost like a pie - and the patisserie cream is rippled through it in streaks of pure food magic, but we got one from Alid where it was a braid and the cream was sort of platted into it. I was trying to work it out but nobody really seems sure how to do it.
I did get the suggestion of somehow making it like Cinnamon swirls, and that's looking to be the most promising way of doing it at the moment, but if anyone can help I would be forever in your debt.

Before Baking

Recipe: Brioche

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 2 tbsp hand-hot milk
• 225g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 55g butter, melted
• 1 1/2 tsp easy-blend dried yeast
• sunflower oil, for greasing

Glaze:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Lightly beat the eggs with the milk in a bowl, then pour into the bread pan. Sprinkle the flour over the liquid to cover. Place salt, sugar, and butter in 3 corners of the pan. Indent the flour without exposing the liquid and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to the dough setting and press start.
   
2. With the lid shut, let the dough rise in the machine for an extra 30 minutes
3. Remove finished dough from pan. Knock back gently on a lightly floured surface.
4. Slice of one quarter, wrap in oiled clingfilm, and set aside. Oil a brioche mould or round cake tin.
5. Kneed large piece of dough, shape into a ball, place in mould, and indent the top. Unwrap the smaller piece and lightly kneed into a pear shape. Place on top.
6. Cover with clingfilm and set aside to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour to rise.
7. Remove the clingfilm. Lightly beat the egg yolk and milk together to form glaze. Brush brioche with glaze. Bake in a preheated oven at 180-200 degrees c for 30-45 minutes, until golden brown.

And after

The recipe came, one again, from 'Essentials: Bread' by Linda Doser. I didn't make any changes to the ingredients, figured it was best to leave it as it was. The one thing that shocked me was the oven temperature and cooking time - originally it says to bake it for 40-45 minutes at 220 degrees C, surly a mistake. After 20 minutes at around 200 degrees mine was thoroughly cooked and so brown it was nearly burnt. I think it would be more reasonable to bake it at 180-190 degrees C for about 25-30 minutes.

The bread turned out very nice, and had a really rich flavour for the amount of butter that was in it. I didn't have a brioche mould so I just baked it in a cake tin, it didn't give too bad a shape. After rising the little pear-shaped ball was beginning to slide a bit, but a bit of egg wash sorted it all out.I will attempt it again as soon as I find out how to make it with patisserie cream and, believe me, I will!

Eggy goodness!

In other baking related news I just came back from the library with four borrowed baking books to devour. My library doesn't have a huge selection, but I could have spent hours agonising over which ones to get. In the end I got two bread machine books, a dessert book, and the Avoca Cafe cookbook. I think I shall have a baking day tomorrow, so expect to see more from me soon!