Brioche ブリオーシュ

We found some small disposable brioche cooking cups in the cupboard. My wife told me she got them to make individual fruit cakes one Christmas some time ago. She then came across a brioche bun recipe in “Frog Commissary  Cookbook”.  So with the juxtaposition of these two events she decided she had to make it. This is the end result (Picture #1). I am not sure why but the traditional brioche bun has a small “topknot” attached to the “body” making it a snowman shape (#1). In the case of this batch almost all the little knobs fell off. No worry. They made nice little bites for breakfast. These were very nice slightly sweet, rich buns. We had them toasted for breakfast and they were perfect. I will let my wife take over.

Ingredients:
¼ cup milk
½ pound butter, in bits
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 package dry yeast (4 ounce each)
¼ cup warm water
6 eggs
5½ cups flour (1½ pounds) 
1 egg yolk (optional)

Directions:
Gently heat the butter with the milk until the butter melts.

Put the sugar and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer and pour on the warm milk-butter mixture. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar. Cool to lukewarm.

Meanwhile, bloom the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl. Add to the milk mixture. Add the eggs and mix until smooth. Add 3½ cups of the flour and again mix until smooth. Switch to the dough hook and stir in the remaining flour. The dough will be too sticky to knead but should begin to pull away from the sides of the bowl; this may take 5-10 minutes of mixing. (I could not add all the flour specified in the ingredients because the dough became quite thick before I was able to add it all. Next time I may not add so much flour leaving the dough a bit sticky as suggested in the instructions.)

(Note: This bread requires 3 rises;  the first 1 to 1 1/2 hrs, the second about 1 hour, the third about 1/2 to 2 1/2 hrs. This is anywhere between 2 1/2  to 4 1/2 hours total. In order to have freshly baked brioche for breakfast, the recipe suggests putting the bowl in the refridgerator for the second rise to occur overnight. They suggest checking on it periodically to make sure it doesn’t rise too much before it cools to the temperature in the refrigerator. Then the third rise could be done the next morning after taking the dough out of the fridge. This is what we did.)

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm spot until doubled, about 1-1½ hours. Punch down the dough and lightly knead in the bowl for 1-2 minutes. Cover again and let rise once more in a warm spot until doubled (about 1 hour). Punch down and knead for 1-2 minutes. With floured hands, divide the dough into 14 pieces (about 3½ ounces each). Shape 12 of the pieces into balls and set one in each of 12 greased individual 3-4 ounce brioche tins.

Divide the remaining 2 pieces into 6 pieces each and roll them into little balls. Poke a hole with your finger in the top of each brioche and put one of the small balls in each indentation for a "topknot” (#2). Set the brioches in a warm spot to rise until very light and doubled in bulk; this could take ½-2½ hours depending on whether dough has been refrigerated Preheat the oven to 375°. Beat the egg yolk and brush it lightly over the brioches as a glaze. (This is optional and we did not do it.) Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned (#3)

These were very good and made a very nice breakfast. We sliced one into 4 slices and lightly toasted it. Then spread on butter to melt in the residual heat. We each took 2 of the slices. What is not to like? Next time I think I will forgo the top knot and maybe cook them in the smaller sized brioche muffin cups we have.