BRIOCHE

I did a thing this past weekend.  I made my first ever brioche! and not to brag… but it came out FANTASTIC.  With all my mature hens laying eggs I have accumulated a stock pile of eggs.   I have also been binge watching the last 2 seasons of Great British Bake Off so a new bread was definitely happening this week.

Like I said, I have accumulated quite a few eggs and I knew I wanted to make an enriched dough of some kind and brioche recipes tell you to add 4 to 6 eggs to the dough and I thought yep – Brioche it is.  The hard thing about starting a brioche is knowing which recipe to start with because every single recipe I looked at use a different amounts of eggs and butter, do I use milk or water to activate my yeast, and which proof time is right and how much will this really yield?.  I think all of these variables is ultimately why I haven’t made a brioche loaf before this point because the discrepancies were overwhelming.

However, this weekend I decided to just pick one and stick with it and be confident in my bread making skills that I should know if something doesn’t look right I can change it and eventually add to the brioche chaos with my own version of a perfect Brioche recipe.

So where did I start?  I started with a Brioche Recipe from food.com, the reviews from people said it was really simple and hard to mess up.  So I thought, yep, this is the one.  However I found the recipe instructions to be rather confusing.  There are definitely some techniques and understanding of those techniques I felt I visually needed to understand in order to make this recipe correctly.  So, I chose one of the multiple different brioche videos to help me guide me on my brioche journey – I chose the video Brioche Recipe Demonstration by JoyofBaking.com.

Edit: – I wanted to add that I used my Camp Chef Cast Iron Bread pan for this brioche and I really believe this helped create my successful results.  This cast iron bread pan is a game changer for all my bread making.  <3

I liked the recipe.  I think it was a great place to start my brioche baking adventure.  I definitely could not have done the recipe successfully without the video.  Now that I have made a brioche loaf, I will definitely be making a lot more.

I actually split the dough in half after its rise in the refrigerator and have a dough waiting for me in the freezer.  I am super excited to see how that does after being frozen.  I will definitely be updating you on that experiment.

Ultimately, I can see why this is such a popular bread and I have to say this is one of my proudest bakes.  It all came together correctly, and it tastes like a croissant.  Brioche is incredible and it doesn’t take that much more effort that any other bread loaf you would make for home baking.  I read somewhere that brioche is thought to be a sweet loaf but that is mostly because brioche is typically associated with sweet things.  Brioche can absolutely be savory and is delicious on its own.

In the near future I can’t wait to make a brioche burger bun and get creative with a savory brioche wreath – a recipe will be created and coming at you for sure this Fall before Christmas.  I can’t wait – I can already visualize it in my mind.

Brioche is so much fun, if you are thinking about making it but just haven’t I encourage you to just stop overthinking it and do it.  I am glad I did <3