Golden Brioche

I decided to bake brioche for my friend that bought me the cook books and inspired me again to get baking. As I was reading the recipe from the 'Baking with Julia' cook book, I could hear Meryl Streep's voice from the movie 'Julie and Julia'. It was quite funny.

The recipe called for a few ingredients that I did not have immediate access to and I had to bake these NOW. So i went to my favorite baking blog: Almost Bourdain. The brioche recipe seemed relatively easy and the pictures were BEAUTIFUL!

I didn't follow the recipe EXACTLY since I am known for my 'a little more for good measure' tactic. However, it is more or less the same. I loved how my brioche turned out, it looked almost as good as the one from the blog hence the millions of end product photos!

Ingredients:

2 x 1/3 milk
1 and 1/2 tsp of instant dry yeast
6 x small egg yolks (beaten)
3705g of flour + extra for work area
1/3 cup caster sugar +1tsp caster sugar + extra for sprinkling on top
150g butter (cold and mashed)
1 x small egg (beaten)
1 tsp kosher salt or natural salt


Method

• microwave 1/3 cup of milk till luke warm. Pour into medium sized bowl.

• Add in the yeast and 1tsp of caster sugar. This helps the yeast to grow. Stir until everything is dissolved and the liquid is not too lumpy!
  

• In another medium sized bowl, combine the egg yolks and milk together so that it is of smooth consistency
  

• Now get a large sized bowl, and mix in 1/3 cup of caster sugar, the flour and salt and combine well so that are no lumps. Create a hole in the middle and pour in the liquid from the milk and egg mixture and the yeast and milk mixture.
  

• Use a mixer with dough hooks and kneed the dough for approximately 10 minutes, until dough starts pulling away from the bowl's sides and clings onto the dough hooks.
  

• Slowly add in the mashed up butter and incorporate in well. Mix for another 10 minutes or until the dough starts pulling away from the sides again.
  

• Grab the dough, and place it in a lightly buttered bowl and wrap up and let it rest for 2 hours. The dough should double in size. It is good to have the bowl in a warm place which lets the yeast grow.

• After the two hours, get the dough and kneed it well, getting all the air out. Make sure you flour your bench so it does not stick too much.
  

• Put the dough into a bread loaf tin and shape accordingly. Now, turn on your oven to 180 degrees. Meanwhile, Let the dough in the bread loaf tin rest for another 2 hours, uncovered so that it rises again.
  

• Once the two hours has past (I know! there is A LOT of waiting!), brush the eggwash on the top, making sure that you do not put too much so that it drips down the side. Sprinkle some extra caster sugar on top and pop into the oven for around 30 minutes or so depending on how hot your oven is.
  

• Take the bread out of the tin, and place it in a pan and pop it into the oven again for another 20 minutes so that the sides get golden also.

• and now, let it cool on a cooling rack and ENJOY!