Is it just me or you can see the fluff of the bread coming out and calling you to put Nutella all over it? I hope it’s you too! This is my favourite bread loaf of all time, and it’s soft like a PILLOW
This is a Brioche Bread, richest loaf in the history of loaves? I’ll have to verify that to be sure. BUT what I can tell you with absolute certainty, if you are looking for a milk bread which be excellent for sweet spreads and French toasts. Diving into the recipe information now.
Rich Loaf
In the world of breads, you will go through words like lean and rich. Now essentially, the difference between these type of breads is its ingredients. If we talk about lean dough per say, it mostly includes, water, yeast, salt and flour.
On the contrary, rich doughs have a lot going in including a lot of fat content and dairy products like eggs and milk. A heavy day – it needs time to breathe and proof, which is detailed below.
Working with Yeast
YEAST is nothing to be scared about, it’s honestly not Rocket Science. I use Active Dry Instant Yeast. If you’re using Fresh Yeast, just double the quantity. Here are a few tips which will help you to learn about yeast. I use Active Dry Instant Yeast.
Water: Only use Warm Water when trying to activate yeast. Both hot and cold water will kill the yeast. Use Lukewarm Water!
Salt vs Sugar: Sugar helps the yeast to activate, to make it frothy and to give a better rise. Whilst, salt is the opposite, it’s an anti-agent. Salt should only be incorporated in the dough towards the final stages of it
Proofing: YES IT REQUIRES PATIENCE! You need to find a warm place, a Switched Off oven is the best place to proof your bread. In areas where it’s generally cold or during Winters, it will take longer to proof say about a little bit more than an hour. But during Warm Climate or/and Humid Weather, it will take relatively shorter, close to around 40 minutes.
Enough about yeast! All I am saying is it’s nothing to be scared about. If you want to learn more about the rising agent, click here to take you to Yeast 101.
Understanding Brioche
A brioche is a very rich dough. It’s made with eggs, sugar, milk and yeast as mentioned above. This dough churns out breads which are soft and fluffy, that’s what I am looking for here. A pillow like rich bread! But it needs attention and proofing a bit more than the lean dough. Ideally, you can: Try making the dough a night before and refrigerate it in the fridge (in a bowl, cling wrapped). In the morning, keep it out for 30 minutes and then punch it before second proofing of 1 hour, this will guarantee better results for any recipe using brioche dough.
This dough asks you to divide the dough in pieces of 3 or 8 for a better texture and feel. More about it can be found written below.
Dividing the Loaf
To build a texture of the brioche bread it Is ideal to divide the loaves in 3 or 8. As pictures above, the dough was divided into pockets of 8 – giving a dinner roll kind of an effect.
If you don’t feel 8 is the number for you- you may divide the roll into 3 as well. To do that, simple cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Flatten the dough a bit and pull up the shorter edges of the dough towards the centre followed by folding of the longer edge of the dough. This method is called the Envelope Folding Method and is widely used in preparation of sourdoughs!
Simple YouTube to fetch the video to make sure you are able to get it done with any hindrance.
The Flour Used
This bread was made using TwF Flour, Series C Flour. The C8318 is my go-to flour for brioche doughs and babka’s. It’s unbleached and crafter for rich dough flour, gave me a lot more stretchability to work with and made my bread super soft. Here’s the link to it:
https://twfflours.com/c?source=boyeatsworld
Equipment
- Stand Mixer (Optional)
- oven
- Weighing Scale
- Spatula
- 8.5*4.5 Inch Loaf Pan
Ingredients
- 5 g Active Dry Yeast
- 2-3 Eggs large-medium
- 1 Egg Yolk
- 3 tbsp Caster Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter softened
- 2 cups + 1 tbsp TwF Flour Series C 8318 or All Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
Instructions
- Begin by adding yeast, sugar and milk in a bowl or to your stand mixer bowl. Give it a good mix and leave it to bloom for 10 minutes.
- Once frothy, add in the eggs, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Whisk together till they combine. Next, add in the Flour and Salt. Combine well.
- With a hook attachment, start kneading the dough. Once combined (after 5 minutes) - add in the butter in batches of 4. Giving at least a minute for each batch to combine well before adding in the next.
- After adding all the butter, scrape down the sides and bottom, and knead the dough for 5-7 minutes more, at a speed of 6 until it's fully combined. If you are kneading by hand, it can take upto 10 minutes.
- The dough would be glossy but not sticky. Take out the dough on a lightly floured surface and stretch the dough - combine well to form a round ball. Leave it in the bowl to rise for an hour.
- After an hour, punch down the dough to deflate it. Repeat the stretch and fold method and make the round ball again. Keep it in a new bowl - cling wrapped in the fridge for 8-12 hours in the refrigerator.
- After leaving the dough overnight, take out the bowl, and leave it outside for an hour. After which, divide the dough equally into sizes of 8 or 3.
- If you are doing what I did, simply make round balls of these 8 dough balls and align it in your well oiled loaf tin, and let it proof for an hour more.
- If you want to divide the dough into 3 parts, simply divide it into 3 equal parts and fold the dough using the envelope folding method - more on this can be found written above.
- Leave your dough to proof for an hour more. Once done, egg wash the dough using a pastry brush. Simply add beat egg yolk lightly on top of the dough shape its forming post proofing.
- Preheat tour oven to 180°C. Once ready , put in the tin and carefully watch it rise. Since you have egg washed the dough, the top may brown quicker than you think. You may need tent your tin using your foil so it doesn't brown too much.
- The bread would take 20-30 minutes to fully bake. Once done, let it cool in a wire rack for 10-15 minutes before slicing it open and spreading it with Nutella!
Someone once rightly said “a recipe has no soul, you must bring soul to the recipe”, so here I am, trying to bring my passion for food into easy to make recipes from around the world.
My name is Sohail Nath and I welcome you to my happy place, @boy.eatsworld.
This blog, my creativity’s nest covers travel inspirations, authentic yet homemade recipe and food blogs.