Playing With My Food ~
A journal about food, thought, travel, and life; by Chef & Raconteur Chaz French.

Loaf Style Brioche Bread

This recipe is adapted from The Mixer Bible which is a great ‘go to’ if you have a stand mixer, in fact, it’s a must have.

NOTE: This recipe includes 3 rises that total 7 hours, start this early in the day if you want it for dinner.

Brioche:

Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
3 Tablespoons warm water (100F)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/8 cups all purpose flour (unbleached)
3 eggs at room temp, beaten.
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp (if you only have salted butter reduce the salt by half)
1 egg beaten (for brushing over the bread)

Equipment:
Stand mixer with flat beater and dough hook attachments
1 9×5 loaf pan (greased)
Veg oil spray
cups, spoon, spatula, bowl.

Method:
Proof the yeast in the water with the teaspoon of sugar.
In the mixer put in the flour, eggs, salt, sugar, & proofed yeast/water mixture
Mix with the flat beater until a dough forms
Replace the flat beater with the dough hook and knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes
begin adding the butter 1 Tablespoon at a time, incorporating each before continuing, periodically stop and scrape down the bowl and pull the dough from the top of the hook. Towards the end you may need to increase speed to 3 or 4 to incorporate the butter. When done you’ll have a dough that resembles thick cake batter.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place free of drafts for 2 hours.
Punch down and let rise covered at room temp 1 more hour.
Move to fridge and chill for two hours.

Flour your work surface, take the chilled dough and work into a ball by tucking the edges under, repeatedly, when you have a smooth ball, begin to shape it into a rectangle that will cover the bottom of the loaf pan.

Grease the loaf pan with veg oil spray, place the dough in the pan and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Allow to rise an additional 2 hours at room temp, until the dough comes to the top of the loaf pan.

Preheat oven to 375.
Brush the top of the loaf with a beaten egg.

Bake for 40 minutes or until bread reaches an internal temp of 190F

Remove from pan and cool on a rack, 30 minutes and serve.
Dough, pre-rise
This is what the dough will look like when you’re done adding the butter.


Time for the final rise in the pan.

Oven Fresh
Fresh from the oven, resist the tempation to eat it for 30 minutes.

The Crumb
So light, so tender, so buttery, so delicious.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, Brioche French Toast.

Charles