Browse: Home / Recipes / Baking / You Had Me at Brioche!

Menu

Skip to content
  • THE SHOP
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Home

EatsporkjewLogo

Funny food and travel stories and foodie recommendations

Menu

Skip to content
  • THE SHOP
  • Restaurants
  • Recipes
    • Baking
    • Beef
    • Breakfast brunch
    • Cocktails & Drinks
    • Desserts
    • dinner
    • Fruit
    • Healthy
    • Poultry
    • Salads
    • Side Dishes
    • soup
    • Vegetarian
  • Travel
    • Austin
    • Belize
    • Brussels
    • Florida
    • Hong Kong
    • Iceland
    • Israel
      • Best Restaurants in Tel Aviv
    • Las Vegas
    • London
    • Massachusetts
    • New Orleans
    • New York
    • Oregon
    • Panama
    • Paris
    • Phoenix/Scottsdale
    • San Diego
    • San Francisco
      • Bay Area-East Bay
    • Thailand
    • Washington DC
    • Wine Country
  • Interviews
  • Best of Lists
    • Best things to do in Iceland
    • Best Restaurants in Tel Aviv
    • Two Bay Area Distilleries Worth Visiting
  • The Brisket Evolution Stops Here
  • Homemade Nachos Recipe
  • Passover Cake You Can Eat All Year
  • The Best Schnitzel in Dresden
  • Vegetable Kugel with Matzah
  • Feeling Old is Fleeting at Rich Table
  • Roasted Whole Red Snapper with Cilantro Serrano Pesto
  • Dead fish and triangle-shaped cookies
  • Love-Heart Cake Balls
  • Guy Savoy & the Lost Art of Storytelling
  • Driving to Seydisfjordur
  • Flying from Reykjavik to Egilsstaðir
  • Dog Friendly Wineries Sonoma
  • NOLA Bike Tours | Culinary Version
  • Cranberry Sauce Makes Me Think of Sperm
  • The Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe
  • St Germain Cocktail for Halloween
  • The 80-Pound Sweet Potato Pie
  • Bobbi’s Infamous Apple Cake
  • It’s all Greek to me! Kokkari Estiatorio

You Had Me at Brioche!

Posted by eatsporkjew on May 7, 2015 in Baking, Recipes | 718 Views | Leave a response

brioche-plain-pecan-maple-bread

Baking used to terrify me. Granted it was before I had a KitchenAid standing mixer, which can make a newbie baker feel like a professional, but there were just too many rules and it freaked me out. A pinch of this, an extra cup of that, “knead for approximately two minutes but no more than two minutes,” blah blah blah….way too much pressure for a twelve year old and I was raised as a delicate flour. [puns and misspelling intended!]

Suffice it to say I only baked a little when I was little. I remember making mini challahs for Shabbat at day camp one summer. I was about six at the time so they made the dough and just gave it to us to braid. I remember it tasting super yeasty, which, come to think of it, is probably when my aversion to vaginas started to ferment.

Cut to half a decade later and I was preparing for my bar-mitzvah. At the synagogue my family belonged to, every bar and bat-mitzvah had to complete 13 mitzvot, or good deeds, in preparation for becoming an adult. I remember getting a list of suggestions for inspiration from the cantor: feed the homeless, volunteer to pick up trash at a park, plant a tree, tutor someone younger than you, visit the elderly, bake a challah, etc. I didn’t really want to get anywhere near the homeless (though I did), manual labor seemed like something someone else would be good at (I ended up doing that too), and old people used to freak me out; but baking bread….that seemed right up my alley.

This was before Google so I had to look up a recipe in one of my stepmother’s old cookbooks, and I followed it to a T…until we got to the part where I had to knead it. The recipe called for ‘five minutes of kneading before letting it rest and then bake.’ I definitely kneaded it for five minutes—and then some. It was so much fun to have the dough between my fingers, and to be wearing an apron. And who doesn’t like making a mess in the kitchen? Besides, it was a good deed and I had to do it.

So I braided the challah, gave it an egg wash—my first—and baked it until a golden brown crust formed. Impatiently I let it rest and cool for the requisite 60 minutes before I grabbed a serrated knife and started hacking away.

Thanks to my intense kneading it was as hard as a rock. We’re talking dense, chewy (not Jewy) and it didn’t taste to good either.

I remember being depressed at my failed attempt and wondered if that counted towards my 13 mitzvot or if I’d have to do it all over again?

And just when I’d about given up on a life full of fun in the kitchen, I learned a very important lesson about silver linings.

“Think of it this way,” my stepmother said, “you essentially made a bagel challah!”

And I couldn’t have been happier. Just think. I thought I’d failed at making a traditional Jewish bread we eat on the Sabbath…..and by changing my perspective, I ended up making a braided version of one of the hole-iest and most Jewish breads in the world—a bagel.

Brioche Bread: Plain or Pecan Maple Cinnamon

brioche-bread-ingredients

I went on a baking hiatus for the next 20 years and left making bread to the experts. Until I started watching Cook’s Country every night before bedtime and watched them make soda breads, and brioche breads and more. They made it look so easy that I figured I could give it a go once more.

And that inspired the following recipes for plain brioche bread, which can be easily modified to be a delicious sweet brioche with pecans, maple sugar, and cinnamon.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tblsp active dry yeast
  • 3 cups bread flour (I use King Arthur) and another ¼ cup for kneading
  • 1 tblsp salt
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 stick of unsalted butter melted and at room temperature
  • 2 tbslp granulated sugar
  • 1 cup of warm water (around 110° because if the water is at 140° the yeast will die)
  • 1 tblsp heavy cream
  • 1 tblsp honey
  • non-stick spray for proofing bowl
  • extra butter for loaf pans

brioche-pecan-maple-cinnamon

For the Pecan Maple Cinnamon Bread

  • ⅔ cups light brown sugar
  • 1 tblsp granulated maple sugar
  • 1 tblsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • 4 tblsp softened butter

brioche-egg-wash

For an Egg Wash

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp water

*This recipe is the same for either the regular brioche loaf or the pecan maple cinnamon bread aside from two bolded sections below.

Add the 1 tblsp active dry yeast to the cup of warm water and gently mix it around with your finger and then let it sit for a minimum of 5 minutes until it foams and becomes cloudy.

brioche-active-yeast

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the 4 eggs, 1 tblsp heavy cream, 1 tblsp honey and set aside.

brioche-egg-bread

Whisk the dry ingredients (2 cups and 8 tblsp of bread flour, 2 tblsp granulated sugar, and 1 tblsp salt until well combined. [Yes, I know it’s strange the sugar is in with the flour and not the butter and eggs…..trust me it all turns out in the end.]

Once the yeast and warm water are frothy, add that mixture to the egg mixture and whisk until combined.

Add the egg and yeast mixture to the dry ingredients all at once and then start stirring with a wooden spoon, until well combined.

brioche-recipe-plain

brioche-bread-recipes

Pour the melted butter over the top and continue to stir the dough until the butter is absorbed and you have wet dough that’s more like a thick pancake mix than anything else, but that’s what we’re going for.

brioche-bread-with-butter-and-honey

Spray the inside of a large mixing bowl liberally with non-stick spray and then pour the dough into the bowl. Don’t worry, the dough will be sticky and too wet to really handle with your hands.

Cover with plastic wrap (spray some of the plastic wrap with non-stick spray too) and then place the bowl in the refrigerator.

brioche-bread-recipe-plain

After 30 mins in the fridge, with your fingers, pull the dough from the edges up and over towards the center of the bowl going around the entire circumference twice. Then return the plastic wrap and put it back in the fridge for another 30 mins.

brioche-bread-recipe

Repeat the process every 30 mins for the next 2 hours. The dough will get less and less sticky each time, but it will still be too sticky to handle. It should be getting a little bigger each time and feel soft and light, but still very sticky.

After 2 hours of your dough proofing, separate the dough in two and turn half of the dough out onto a heavily floured (use ¼ cup bread flour) work surface.

homemade-brioche-bread

With another palm full of bread flour dust your hands and the top of the dough and start kneading the dough, incorporating more and more flour into the dough as needed with each push from the heel of your hand, fold and turn. Knead the dough for about 3 mins, adding more flour if needed, but the dough should be just barely dry enough for you to handle it briefly. It’s meant to stay moist and buttery and it’s okay if you have a bunch of it on your hands when you get to this part of the process.

Now you have choices…

Regular Brioche Loaf: If you’re making the regular brioche loaf, then you can roll the dough out into a log, fold the sides in on itself, and place it into one of the buttered and floured loaf pans with the seem side of the log down.

plain-brioche-bread-recioe

Pecan Maple Cinnamon Brioche: If you’re making the pecan cinnamon maple brioche bread, then you want to repeat the process of incorporating flour into the dough as above, but instead of rolling it into a log, you roll it out (a rolling pin works best) into a 12 x 16 inch rectangle (don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect) with the short 12 inch side facing your stomach. Make sure there’s plenty of flour on the rolling pin and surface before you start otherwise the dough will stick.

sweet-brioche-bread

Working quickly, spread as much of the pecan, sugar and spice mixture out in a single layer on top of the dough, leaving a ¾ inch boarder. This is where you can use less or more pecan filling depending on how sweet you want your final product to be.

brioche-bread-pecan-maple-recipe

Then fold up each of the long sides and finish gently lifting the short end furthest away from you and rolling the dough over the pecan-sugar mixture until it forms a log.

brioche-bread-cinnamon-recipe

brioche-bread-recipe

brioche-recipe-bread-with-pecans

Then place it seem-side down in your loaf pan.

brioche-bread-with-maple-sugar

Continuing with either recipe from this point on, let the dough rise for 30 mins in the loaf pans covered with plastic wrap

brioche-bread-pecan-maple-recipe

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 375° and when they’ve finished resting, lightly brush them with an egg wash (whisk the egg and 1 tsp water together), and bake the brioche loaves on the middle rack with a spritz of some water in the oven before closing the door.

brioche-bread-proofing

brioche-recipe-with-egg-wash

Bake the brioche breads for 50-60 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the dough is puffed up. Spritz the inside of the oven with a few sprays of water once more about half way through the baking process (at minute 30).

baking-brioche-bread

When done, take the dough out of the oven and let them cool (in the loaf pans) on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, before turning them out of the pans to let them finish cooling on the rack, covered with a towel, for a few hours or over night if you’re baking the bread in the evening.

brioche-bread-cooling

brioche-bread-home-recipe

Then enjoy!

The plain brioche bread is amazing toasted with a sprinkle of salt or your favorite jam.

plain-brioche-bread

The pecan maple cinnamon brioche is delicious as is and you can heat it in the microwave the next day, and the day after, and the day after that….if it lasts that long.
brioche-pecan-maple-bread

Posted in Baking, Recipes | Tagged baking, bread, bread flour, breakfast, brioche, butter, carbs, challah, cinnamon, desserts, dough, egg wash, homemade, Jewish, maple, pecan, Recipes, sweets, treat

Related Posts

caramel sauce dairy freePassover Cake You Can Eat All Year→

vegetable-kugel-with-matzah-passover-sederVegetable Kugel with Matzah→

Dead fish and triangle-shaped cookies→

Love-Heart Cake Balls→

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on InstagramFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSS

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

You May Also Like

  • “Jew eat?…No. Jew?”

    “Jew eat?…No. Jew?”

    Part 2 of 4 Part 1: Motion Sickness Part 2: ..

  • 10 Signs Your Food and Travel Blog Are Making You ..

    10 Signs Your Food and Travel Blog Are Making You ..

    Bending over to put on your shoes is ..

  • 5 Senses Tour of Bouchard Aîné & Fils

    5 Senses Tour of Bouchard Aîné & Fils

    Dating back to 1750 Bouchard Aîné & Fils ..

  • A Beautiful Galapagos Moment

    A Beautiful Galapagos Moment

    It’s been a year since my parents got ..

  • A Bread Worth Rising For!

    A Bread Worth Rising For!

    For me, most Saturdays start off the same. ..

  • A Clam Slam I Can Go For

    A Clam Slam I Can Go For

    Today I received an email from a woman ..

  • Popular
  • Latest
  • Tags
  • famous-pok-pok-chicken-wings

    Portland: The Perfect Bachelor Party Destination

    26954 views / Posted August 19, 2014
  • The Brisket Evolution Stops Here

    15419 views / Posted April 1, 2020
  • San-Francisco-yelp-cafe

    Barista Babes and the Yelpiest Cafe in San Francisco

    8336 views / Posted September 10, 2014
  • belinda-chef-pastry

    The Diary of a Pastry Chef

    8038 views / Posted December 19, 2014
  • oven-roasted-leg-of-lamb

    The Perfect Roasted Leg of Lamb

    4713 views / Posted November 28, 2016
  • The Brisket Evolution Stops Here

    April 1, 2020 / eatsporkjew
  • beef nachos-homemade

    Homemade Nachos Recipe

    March 25, 2020 / eatsporkjew
  • caramel sauce dairy free

    Passover Cake You Can Eat All Year

    March 18, 2020 / eatsporkjew
  • Dresden-Opera-semperoper

    The Best Schnitzel in Dresden

    March 17, 2020 / eatsporkjew
  • vegetable-kugel-with-matzah-passover-seder

    Vegetable Kugel with Matzah

    March 10, 2020 / eatsporkjew
baking basil beef beets brunch Burgundy butter calamari carrots ceviche cheese cheesecake chicken chocolate cilantro cinnamon cocktails desserts dinner duck eggs fennel fish france garlic goat cheese ice cream Jewish lemon lunch mushrooms New Orleans octopus Paris potatoes restaurants salad San Francisco scallops seafood shrimp sweets Thailand travel vegetables
 

Categories

 

Archives

 

Social Media

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on InstagramFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSS
 

©2014 Eatsporkjew

Menu

  • THE SHOP
  • Restaurants
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Interviews
  • Best of Lists
This site uses cookies: Find out more.