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Monday, July 26, 2010

Baking Beautiful Brioche!


This past Baking Beauties assignment was for us to try our hand at making brioche. I just adore fresh baked bread, so I couldn't wait to complete this recipe.

One recipe from "Baking with Julia" can make three loaves of brioche, so you get quite a bit from not too much work. I don't have proper brioche flute pans, so I decided to make some loaves with my dough. I sectioned off the dough into three - using two thirds for two loaves and the last third to make dulce de leche cream cheese brioche buns.

The dough was quite easy to put together (simpler than other recipes I have tried). However, if I didn't have a stand mixer, I wouldn't be saying brioche is easy; my Kitchen Aid handles the tough part - kneading for 15 minutes. My mixer was so hot, I swear it was about 2 minutes away from smoking!



From that point, there's not much left to do. A few steps of waiting for the wonderfully buttery and tender dough to rise and voila, c'est tout! I can not even tell you how delicious the main floor of our house smelled while it was baking. Like heaven.

To make the dulce de leche cream cheese buns, you take the dough after the first two hour rise and roll it out into a rectangle. Layer cream cheese and dulce de leche over the dough (leaving an inch border all around). Roll it up and slice it. Place slices into paper lined muffin tins. Leave to rise in the fridge over night. In the morning, you must let it rise again for 2 hours before you bake until golden. It's a nice change from your regular run of the mill sticky buns.



As for the brioche loaves, I served them with some berry preserves, but it was so good, I had many slices au naturel. I hope all the Beauties tested this recipe out. It was easy and the results were fantastic. I will definitely be revisiting this recipe when I feel the urge for some brioche!



P.S. Brioche is best eaten the day it's baked. However, if you can't finish it, day old brioche makes an excellent french toast!

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