I would like your recipe for brioche! Am at college at the moment but come summertime, I’d love to make some things 😊💜
One recipe coming right up!!
You will require the following, to be used in this order (because people who lay out ingredients in the wrong order in a recipe are dreadful little rascals and I do not wish to count myself amongst their merry ranks)
500g plain flour (plus a bit extra if kneading by hand; I usually have to use at least another 30g or so when I’m kneading it)
10g dry active yeast (although you generally buy it in 7g sachets, which in my experience works just fine)
200ml milk (I’m not gonna lie, I’ve yet to find a good dairy equivalent for this recipe. Soy milk does the trick all right; oat milk Technically Works but makes it go very wet and I’ve yet to get the balance right between that and the flour. If you can, use real milk)
60g caster sugar (if you’re feelin’ spicy, you could do 50g sugar and 10ml honey)
100g butter, slightly softened (LISTEN. You’re gonna read a lot of shit online which tells you complete arse like ‘you can use 2 eggs and 250g flour and 100g butter :)’ or ‘6 eggs!! 500g flour!! 250g butter!!’ and this is all NONSENSE. The perfect ratio of flour to butter in a brioche dough is 5:1 for a dough that kneads easily and has the perfect stretchy crumb once it’s cooked. I have an A Level in French so you can trust me on this. Also, an actual French man’s recipe taught me that. Also, I eat a lot of brioche for someone who’s technically lactose intolerant. I will fight anyone who disagrees with this ratio. To the death if need be)
approximately ½ teaspoon of turmeric… I am a fucking maverick and I like my brioche to look like it belongs in a cartoon. This is a very optional ingredient; I like it because it makes the dough a little bit more yellow, which is oddly satisfying to me, and it offsets the sweetness of the sugar nicely. It’s not necessary, but don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.
Once you have assembled your little tableaux of horrors, you’ll want to do the following:
In a stand mixer or by hand, mix the flour, eggs and yeast together in a mixing bowl until ‘combined’, which basically means you beat the living shit out of it until it forms what looks like a rough dough. It’s not a good dough, though. It would taste like garbage if you baked it. Don’t do that. If you want to make shitty three ingredient bread, then why you are even here? Lots of people swear by a stand mixer for this part, but y’know, hands work well if you have them. I never use a mixer because it makes more washing up and I’m not about that life. Don’t scratch the inside of your ear during this bit if you’re kneading by hand. That’s a top tip from me.
Add the butter, sugar (and honey if you’re using it), salt and turmeric (I know), and add the milk gradually, kneading the dough for a good ol’ while until it forms a smooth, elastic dough. I often find that I have to add a bit more flour here as it’s a pretty moist (sorry) dough; an alternative to this is coating your hands very lightly in butter or vegetable oil. Yes, it feels weird, but it stops the dough sticking to your hands. You’re welcome for the tip. You could also use a stand mixer for this, but again, I always do it by hand. Kneading dough is fun. Just pretend it’s someone you hate - I thoroughly recommend imagining that it’s Boris Johnson - and go to town on it. You’ll know the dough is kneaded thoroughly when it has a sort of satiny finish, like a good paint, and feels very slightly tacky to the touch, but not in a Kardashian sort of way.
Name your dough child. This is actually a very important step because it anthropomorphises the dough and makes you less likely to throw it out of a window if it all goes wrong. Also, just like with a human child, you have certain expectations for your dough children, but they don’t always do what you want them to do. Sometimes, your beautiful little brioche just wants to be a bit dense when it’s all grown up, or doesn’t quite want to rise the way you’d like. It doesn’t mean you should love your children any less. You should eat them anyway. Just like with human children. That’s a tip I got from Kronos.
Put your child (dough, not human) into a large bowl, cover the bowl with clingfilm or a damp tea towel, and put it in a warm place to prove for 1-2 hours until it’s grown A Lot. An airing cupboard is the best place for this if you have one; I do not, so I tend to heat the oven gently for a few minutes to about 25 degrees celsius, then I turn it off, leave the oven light on (so my dough doesn’t get scared, but also for the residual heat) and put it in there.
That’s the dough part done!! The next part is deciding what to do with your dough child!! Do you want to make a loaf? Some little buns? Some delightful chocolate and cinnamon twists? Just because it’s easiest, I recommend doing a loaf at first, which can look deceptively fancy if you braid it!! For this step, you will require:
A loaf tin. This is not an edible ingredient.
Take your dough out of its warm, safe place, and chop it into three sections. Roll each section out into an equal sized sausage, and then do the fun bit: braid them. Glom them all together at one end, so they’re attached, and then just plait them like you would plait hair. If you’ve never plaited hair before, then go outside, find the nearest person with long hair, and get them to let you plait it. It’s a joy that everyone should experience at least once. Failing that, follow this tutorial. You’re welc.
Put your beautiful, braided child into a loaf tin, cover it again, and prove it for a further 20-30 minutes in a warm place. It should rise a little more during this time, if it wants to make you proud.
Mix the egg and milk together to make an egg wash, and bathe your dough child in it, as though you are baptising it. A pastry brush works best for this, but if you’re That Bitch, you can use your fingers I GUESS. I’m not your mother, and you’ll have to wash your hands. Thoroughly, please.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees celsius, which is probably, like, 5,000 degrees fahrenheit, I don’t know, I use sensible measures of temperature (I just Googled it for you and it’s 390, you’re fucking welcome, what the fuck.)
Bake your gentle child for 20-30 minutes, until golden brown, like a chicken nugget but not crispy or made of chicken, or indeed a nugget. Your child will want to disappoint you here; it’s very, very easy to overcook a brioche, so I recommend keeping an eye on it during this bit. I learnt this the hard way. Sniff sniff.
Take it out of the loaf tin and leave it on a cooling rack to, erm, cool. Don’t cool it in the loaf tin. It’ll go all soggy. No-one wants soggy brioche. Ask literally anyone.
Eat the shit out of it. It’s very, very nice with jam. Which, hey, you could also make, but I’m not doing another recipe today. I still have to cook my own doughy son. His name is Pierre. I love him desperately. He grows so strong in my oven.
This is the first ever brioche I made, which is the only photo I have for reference, because I usually eat the shit out of my brioche before I can photograph it. This one is a little overcooked (it had 30 minutes but only needed 25); yours should look less brown than this!
And when you’ve nailed the dough, you can do a whole host of other delicious things with brioche, like CHOCOLATE AND CINNAMON SWIRLS
Have fun experimenting with the dough!
baratheonpilled
janainaart
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
