#rich bread

[foodreceipe]

Classic Brioche Recipe - Munaty Cooking

This classic Brioche does not need the 12 to 13-hours proofing, yet the outcome is delicious fluffy, and rich loaf of bread.

Brioche is a French bread and is enjoyed by many. Classic Brioche consists of eggs, butter, yeast, and flour. It sounds like a simple to make bread, but there is a catch, it’s time! Making brioche consumes time, not the kneading part, kneading takes 10 minutes, but the proofing takes almost 12 hours.

https://www.munatycooking.com/classic-brioche/

[felasintumbld]

This is the base dough I make for cheese stuffed breads, cinnamon buns, pull aparts, and other things that are very sweet or rich. The bread itself isn't super sweet for a bread--instead it lends itself to a Venetian style of bread-making: milk, fat, and eggs.

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp dry active yeast (1 package)

1/2 tsp salt

2 oz (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/3 cup WHOLE milk (yes whole, I will come to your house and yell angrily if you don't use whole; whole milk is what helps make it so rich. look at the rest of these ingredients for fuck's sake)

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs

Pans and shit

This one actually uses a fair bit--you need a regular sized bread pan, 1 large bowl to mix in, 1 large bowl to rise in, 1 small bowl/cup to whisk eggs in, and a small sauce pot. You also will want a thermometer.

Directions

Sift together* 2 cups of flour, the sugar, yeast, and salt in the large bowl.

Whisk eggs gently and set aside.

Melt together the butter in the milk in a sauce pan**. Once butter is just melted, remove from the heat and add water. Let stand for about 1-2 minutes--you want the temp on this to be between 115 - 125 F (colder, the yeast won't wake up; hotter, it will die a horrid death and not rise).

Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir together. Then add your eggs--you'll need to stir for a bit because the egg will keep acting like it doesn't want to go in the dough. Keep at it! It's gonna be slick and slimey--this is a very sticky, wet dough. Then add another 3/4 cup of flour and mix. It's still sticky, but less slimey now.

Grease your rising bowl and put the dough in there. Yes. It's sticky. It's okay. Suck it up. Cover the top of the bowl with a damp kitchen towel, and put it somewhere warm.***

Let it rise for about 1 hour--it will double in size.****

After it rises, preheat the oven to 350F.

Turn your dough out onto a well-floured surface (this is where the last 1/4 cup of flour is used--to keep the board unstuck). Knead in 2 Tbsp of the flour. The dough will feel very soft and pillowy--like the perfect gnocchi dough actually. Soft and pillows and loooovely~~~ Cover it with the damp towel again and let it rest for about 5 minutes.

Once it's rested, this is the point you turn it into other things. Suggestions:

roll flattish into a rectangle. Put cheese in center. Fold up like a pouch and then put into your pan.

roll into a 12 x 20 inch rectangle. Brush on 2 oz of browned butter, then cover in a mix of 1 cup granulated sugar to 2 tsp cinnamon; cut into six strips, then six again, then stack in the pan sideways.

cinnamon rolls! You'll want a different pan, but you just roll it out as above, coat as above, and then cut the strips. Instead of cutting again, roll them up and nestle them together.

just fucking bake it it's great bread by itself

Once it's in your bread pan, let it rise covered with the towel for about 30-45 minutes.

Put in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Stare at longing as it cools for about 20 minutes. Turn onto counter/cooling rack and allow it to cool another 10 while lusting.

devour half in one go.

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*You should always be sifting your dry ingredients in baking, but if you don't have a sifter or mesh sieve to sift in, a proper whisking will work just as well.

**random factoid: you need to heat milk up in order to break down some of the stuff in milk that slow rising. If you don't heat milk in yeast baking, you get lower rises and sadder yeastlings. And we don't want that!

***pro tip: heat the oven up to about 100 f for a few minutes and turn it off. Stick the bowl in there, with the door propped open by a towel. Dark and cozy.

****This just means when you poke it with your fingers the dough doesn't spring back. You don't need to measure this.