Today I made my first real brioche. By real I mean I took the time and effort to try out a recipe that, to me, seemed the most authentic and French. For the recipe I used one of my most priced possessions for over 12 years, the book on Patisserie by the Roux brothers. This book was made to impress me, it’s the opposite of the quick fixes and express route. So, I actually started the process of dough making yesterday, because I learned that good dough making takes time. And they are right. This dough is the best, smoothest and most impressive dough I have ever made.
It is such a treat to handle this buttery substance. Because buttery it is. It’s 350 grams of butter to 500 grams of flour. First I thought that the butter would never be incorporated with the other ingredients and that it would become a sticky mess. But after 10 minutes or so of hard grafting by my trusty KitchenAid I was left with a shiny ball of the most elastic silky dough.
As you can see in the picture, this brioche is not perfect, for it’s lopsided. ‘Mea culpa’ I guess, and room for improvement. But lucky for me lopsidedness does not tamper with taste. As far as I can be the judge of my own first brioche, the taste and consistency were quite wonderful. Light but not too airy, with a good fresh buttery taste. Conclusion: happy with this first result and eager to perfect it.
And now I am going to take a slice of the brioche bread, dust it with icing sugar and stick it under the hot grill. This should be good…
Adrian says
June 18, 2012 at 23:53This picture of your brioche is genius, on the verge of what I’d call cute. Note I don’t normally use that term for a lifeless object. How did you manage to do it by the way? Looking at it makes me smile, in a good way.
Weekend Bakers says
June 19, 2012 at 13:30That is so nice of you! Now you mention it, I can even see it myself a bit :). It’s some years ago so I cannot exactly remember what happened but I think the small ball of dough on top was not placed in a deep enough dent so it started to ‘walk’ a bit during proofing.
Marieke
BTW: Did you see this one?: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…at-result/
Jasper says
April 17, 2011 at 08:22The brioche tasted great! Next time I’ll add some more sugar because, in mine opinion, it tatsed a bit top salty.
Tnx for the recipe.
Jasper
Weekend Bakers says
April 17, 2011 at 09:58Hi Jasper,
Thanks for the feedback. Now you mention the salt content I have to say we almost always tend to use a little less salt than a recipe states. Usually it works out great, because it doesn’t take away from the taste of the bread, on the contrary I would say, a little less salt gives room to better taste the other ingredients, provided people use fresh, high quality flour. This recipe has 15 g of salt in it with 500 g of flour, which would be a lot if you do not consider the 350 grams of (saltless) butter that’s also added. So if I made it again I would probably add 12 to 13 grams of salt. But making a recipe for the first time, I think it is always good to try it as the author has intended it, and then, if necessary, change it according to your own taste.
Happy baking!
Jasper says
April 12, 2011 at 18:23Thanks for the fast reply!
I’ll try it this weekend! BTW like your site very much. The 80 % hydration baguette is already famous amongst my friends and family!
Ciao
Jasper
Jasper says
April 12, 2011 at 18:23Thanks for the fast reply!
I’ll try it this weekend! BTW like your site very much. The 80 % hydration baguette is already famous amongst my friends and family!
Ciao
Jasper
Weekend Bakers says
April 12, 2011 at 10:14Hello Jasper,
Great you liked the easy brioche recipe. The classic brioche recipe is not so much more difficult, just some extra stages.
I do not have the book of the Roux brothers here at the moment, but I have found a youtube clip from the 80’s where you can see how they do it (even by hand): www.youtube.com/watch…juL9AhTe7k
The main difference with the easy recipe is letting the dough rise for two hours and knocking it back before you refrigerate it and also the flour/butter ratio.
You can also find a similar recipe in the more recent book ‘Pastry’ by Michel Roux.
The brioche recipe from that book can also be found here: homes.ninemsn.com.au/house…oche-dough
Let us know how it turns out!
Happy baking
Marieke
Success!
Jasper says
April 11, 2011 at 15:13Hello,
Allthough we both speak dutch, ( I think), I’ll use english in benefit off the international readers en your habbit to use english on this site.
Can you send me the recipe of the brioche you’ve made above, last weekend I used the easy recipe that’s also on your site and it worked out very well. Now I’m interrested in the real work!
Ciao Jasper
Marieke says
February 18, 2009 at 18:59Thank you Marc!
I guess you are right about using your hands, but my excuse for using the mixer is that both the Roux brothers said it’s OK to use one in their recipe. But I do want to try it by hand next time and compare the result. And indeed their recipe also has 3 separate rising sessions.
M.
Marc says
February 18, 2009 at 14:58Yes, nice presentation, but the consistency of the dough is not right because you used a kitchen aid. The lopsidyness is charming, not wrong. Using your hands helps the gluten nake the perfect dough with just the flower, leaven and eggs. Agreed, this is a lot of work, but the results are the best. Only then incorporate the butter. Also 3 separate rising sessions are mandatory: 1 short one for the leaven and then 10 hours, in the middle chase back the risen dough.
Cheers
Liska says
January 11, 2009 at 11:14It makes me very hungry. Beautiful presentation 🙂