Brioches, like croissants, take at least two days to develop that wonderful the taste and smell. I took two whole days doing this, but not too involved. There was little to do compared to making croissants.
The recipe I got is from Le Cordon Bleu when they teach the students how to make brioches. I changed the method a little to give it more time to develop the taste. The result is really wonderful. I think I won’t be making croissants for a long, long time, since these don’t require me to roll and roll and roll. 😉
Making brioches is very much like making breads, it involves kneading and proofing. However, parts of it is like making cakes, in that there is a high content of eggs and butter. The difference between brioches and cake is that you need the gluten to be formed. I use plain flour since I like my breads small. I don’t typically like to bake loaves.
You need to give the dough time for this. The good thing is that you are not pressurised, you can shape the dough as and when you are free, and you can proof an extra few hours and it won’t be over ferment. Nice.
Almond Brioche
Ingredients
Brioche
- 250 g Plain Flour
- 30 g Caster Sugar
- 5 g Salt
- 5 g Dry Yeast
- 125 g Unsalted Butter at 18-22C
- 3 Medium eggs 150g
Marzipan
- 2 Tbsp Butter at room temperature 18-22C
- 1 Tbsp almond meal
- 2 Tbsp Sugar
Instructions
Mixing
- Mix the eggs, caster sugar, dry yeast and 1/3 of the plain flour to form a sponge. It takes 1-2 minutes at low speed.
- Sprinkle 1/3 of the plain flour on top of this sponge. Let it ferment for 20-30 minutes. It is ready when this dry flour cracks through.
- Add the remaining flour, butter and salt and use a dough hook and knead for 4-5 minutes at medium to low speed.
- When the butter is incorporated, increase to medium speed and beat for up to 10 minutes. After every 2-3 minutes, you should stop and check if it passes the window pane test.
- If it doesn't after 10 minutes, then don't continue beating. Over mixing will oxidise the dough.
Proof 1
- Let it proof for 20-30 minutes at room temperature, then transfer to the refrigerator to proof overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Shaping
- The dough should be shaped before the butter melts, so should be done fairly quickly. If you find that the dough becomes too sticky to handle, it should be returned to the fridge for 10 minutes at a time.
- The marzipan is mixed together to form a dough.
- Egg wash before proof.
Proof 2
- Proof for 2 to 2.5 hours at 35C.
- Egg wash again just before baking.
- Bake at 180C for 15 minutes.
- Let the bakes cool for 5 to 10 minutes before removing it from its baking container. Condensation can occur if the bake is not removed from its container when cooling.
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