Petite Brioche Nanterre Loaves : Classic Brioche 'The Baking Bible'
Ban the Brioche Bun!!! Late last week our major talk back radio station called for a ban of hipster brioche bun hamburgers and brioche pulled meat buns. I don't think those people calling saying "enough is enough" with brioche buns have to worry, like the macarons before them the brioche bun craze has reached saturation point now McDonalds sells "build your own brioche burgers".
Really I've yet to come across a brioche burger bun that comes close to home made brioche! With today being the Queens Birthday public holiday in Australia it's apt that I'm baking the queen of breads the classic brioche from 'The Baking Bible'. This buttery beauty is a stunner, for me the aroma evoked the memory of bakeries as a child... oh and as Dad worked for Sara Lee when I was a kid, it kind of reminds me of a fresh soft version of Sara Lee's pecan danish.
New to baking? There is a lot of steps in this recipe yet it's an easy recipe, most of steps you are "waiting" for the yeast to do it's thing.
You start by making the "sponge" (a yeast starter), I made mine in a mixer.
A flour mixture is then sprinkled over the sponge.
Two hours later you'll have bubbles rising through the blanket of flour in parts.
You'll need butter for buttery enriched bread, and here is what the rest of the world is perplexed about an American "stick of butter". It's one hundred and thirteen grams for the rest of us... thanks Rose.
Eggs and well softened butter are added and beaten in.
The resulting dough goes off for a rest in the fridge now, here I'm gently deflating before another hour in the fridge. Brioche, like other enriched breads has a refrigerator period to solidify the butter and make the dough easier to handle.
The dough is envelope folded, rolled, folded and I forgot to take pictures of this bit.
But I remembered to photograph when I wrapped my dough for it's overnight developing time.
Just unwrapped the dough here after a night in the refrigerator. It needs to be deflated a little before working with it.
'The Baking Bible' uses a large loaf tin, I went with small individual tins. I like the petite size, perfect for sharing and it does make really cute sandwiches for afternoon tea and the like.
Smooth balls: whatever shape you are using, your dough needs to nice and smooth. Any fault in your dough now will show in the end product.
Since I'm making Brioche Nanterre, there is eight balls in each lightly buttered tin to create the classic shape. The tins are then covered with oiled plastic wrap and off to rise once again before baking.
I had enough dough to make four petite loaves. I used pearl sugar on two and left two plain. There was a small amount of dough left so I made a few bite sized parisienne (Brioche à tête) with the classic fluted sides and "tête" (head) on top.
Would I bake again? Absolutely!! This recipe is incredibly versatile and can be used for sweet and savoury applications and yes, even for a batch of hipster hamburger buns.
Would I change anything? Nup.
How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a week I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.
Happy Baking :)
You might also like a recipe for making your own honeycomb