Brioche Bread

BRIOCHE BREAD RECIPE : My mother-in-law has a black-belt in bread making, especially when it comes to her famous Swiss tresse (braided pain brioché). But I am getting ahead of myself and if I am going to tell a story it’s best told from the beginning.

Before I met Olivier’s family, breakfast for me was a non event. It was generally eaten quickly, on the run, out the door to work. So it will come as no surprise to you that a quick fruit, piece of toast or cereal, was all that was on the menu.

My sad petit déjeuner habits were interrupted one Sunday, when I was invited to Olivier’s parents for breakfast. Sweet idea I thought – though someone really should have warned me not to eat for several days before, entering what I can only describe as, a Roman feast…..

There were four of us for breakfast and surly enough food for at least twice that. The table was laden with fruit salad, muesli, cereal, a platter of cheese, croissants, boiled eggs,  luncheon meats, whole wheat toast with butter (salted & unsalted) and at least 5 types of homemade jam. Of this delicious banquet, what really caught my eye and later taste-buds was the golden braided bread in the corner. This was Josiane’s famous tresse - a braided brioche bread made with egg and butter, giving  it a smooth golden crust and rich, tender crumb.

After only one slice I was hooked – it was like a Ratatouille portal back to my childhood, of my mother’s baking & comforts of home. I quickly understood how breakfast could turn into a religion, that pleasantly lasted most of the morning, over several coups of tea and good conversation.

Josiane kindly gave me her family recipe, that has become a breakfast staple in our house. I make it with or without an egg-wash, saffron milk, dried fruits, bits of chocolate, cinnamon & sugar, or plain as nature intended. She traditionally splits her dough into 3 long lines and braids them. However, I have come up with this easier method using a loaf tin!

RECIPE : SWEET PEA Blog

• 500 gr white all-purpose flour
• 250 mL milk
• 1/2 cube fresh yeast  (12g)
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100 grams unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• extra egg for egg wash

1. Cut the butter into small cubes and let come to room temperature.
2. Take 2 tablespoons of the cold milk and mix with the fresh yeast until completely dissolved. Set aside.
3. Heat the remaining milk until just warm to the touch (not hot!). Remove from the heat & add the sugar, salt & yeast mix.
4. In a mixer with the bread paddle, add the flour & butter. Start mixing & slowly add the milk mixture.
5. Finally add the egg & continue kneading the dough for 5 minutes until a nice dough forms.
6. Place a damp cloth over the bowl and let rise in a warm area of 1 hour
7. Line a loaf tin with baking paper
8. Split the dough into 4 even pieces. One by one form into an oval ball and place in the lined loaf tin
9. Place in the uncooked loaf in the fridge for 15 minutes
10. Optional : using a pair of scissors, horizontally cut the top of each of the 4 oval balls
11. Beat the extra egg well & using a pastry brush (or your fingers) evenly paint the top of the bread
12. Place the uncooked loaf in a COLD oven. Put the oven at 200°C / 400°F and time the bread for 45 mintues.
13. Remove & let cool before eating.

The butcher, the baker, the candle stick maker… I certainly know which job I would choose!!! Which perhaps explains why every time I entered the local boulangerie (lovely French word for a bakery), a little voice inside my head would say ”why are you not making this yourself…. ”

The best kept secret is : BAKING BREAD IS EASY!

The basic recipe : 500 grams flour to 300mL water, yeast & salt

Then I play around with the types of flour used, sometimes adding extra cracked wheat, oat flakes or seeds!  The possibilities are endless. It is best to just throw caution to the wind and try your hand at what has been a time honoured tradition for centuries (even before the Kitchen Aid …. yes this era did actually exist). And did I mention the smell…. this is what the extra effort is all about – the secent of freshly baking bread wafting through your house.

RECIPE -  SWEET PEA Blog

I used my home oven, local flour, dried yeast (which I had on hand) and my tried & true mixer to make this bread. Nothing high tech or fancy.  

My 1st attempts at making wholewheat bread were admirable, however as I was flying by the seat of my pants and not using a recipe… typical said Dougle… so there were a few issues to be sorted out:

BREAD MAKING TIPS :

1. the oven temperature- my best results came from starting with a cold oven, convection heated with the bread inside to 200°C / 400°F (total cooking time 40 mins)
2. milk vs water – milk gave a softer crust,  so I prefer water fort this type of bread
3. water temperature- I used lukewarm water to better activate the yeast. Not hot or you will kill it!!!
4. water quantity-  300mL for 500g of flour is sometimes not enough (depends on the type of flour used), adding 10mL more water produced a lighter dough that rose better
5. salt – my 1st breads were lacking salt, so I increased this to 1 teaspoon
6. Olive oil – I have been watching Rick Stein’s BBC cooking program where he adds olive oil to his pizza dough, so I gave this a try (2 tablespoons) and it made the dough more moist, yeah!!!
7. Raising techniques- best results were from letting the dough rise twice. Preheat the oven slightly (ie 50°C), then turn it off , let the dough rise twice in the closed warm (but NOT hot) oven (see instructions below)

Ingredients:

• 300 grams white flour
• 100 grams whole wheat flour
• 100 grams spelt (an ancient European cereal grain)
• 50 grams cracked wheat
• 315 mL lukewarm (tepid) water
• 1 packet dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Bread making instructions:

1. In a large electric mixer combine the 3 types of flour, cracked wheat, dry yeast and salt. Mix well.
2. With the mix on a slow speed, gradually add olive oil followed by the water.
3. Next mix (knead) the dough for 8 minutes.
4. Heat your oven slightly (ie MAX 50°C for 5 minutes) until it is just warm to the touch inside.
5. Make the dough into a ball and place in the bowl. Cover bowl with a clean tea towel.
6. Now place in the slightly warm oven. With the door closed leave to RISE for 40 minutes.
7. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.
8. Evenly spread the dough in the lined tin.
9. Make 3 long knife incisions into the dough.
10. Cover with the tea towel and place in the warm oven for 40 minutes to RISE.
11. Remove the tea towel. With the bread INSIDE the oven, heat to 200°C / 400°F
12. Cook for 40 minutes.
13. Remove from loaf tin and let cool on a cooling rack.

NOTE: You can replace the spelt flour with wholewheat or buckwheat flour. Depending on the density of your local flour you may need a little less or more water. Add 300mL and if the dough looks too try gradually add a little more until a nice even uniform ball forms.

{FULLKORNIGHT FORMBROD} This is a story of  Swedish bread, my friends Nina &  Sophie - 2 Swedish sisters, their mother, Elisabeth, and four cities.

Nina was not into baking bread, that is to say not until this past Christmas…. when I got her roped into the kitchen, and not even my own kitchen but that of her mother’s….. as when I saw Elisabeth a few months earlier I asked her how to make Swedish bread… She said not to worry, that she had just the recipe and as Nina was home in Stockholm for the holidays, and would come back an expert.

As she did! And further family help was on the way, as Sophie, brought the authentic Swedish ingredients (vetekross – cracked wheat & grahamsmjöl- wholewheat flour etc.) from Stockholm, to London to Paris and finally to Geneva, where this past weekend Nina and I made the recipe together. So impressed was I with the outcome – thick crunchy crust, soft, yet dense centre of cracked wheat, that I just made another loaf just to post the results this evening.

So a big thank you to Nina, Elisabeth & Sophie - I truly believe that I was Swedish in another life!

RECIPE – SWEET PEA BLOG

This is Elisabeth’s traditional Swedish Bread recipe, one that she has been making since she was a little girl.  So come, pull up a chair and grab a knife and then a slice, or maybe two, as this is true comfort food to be shared.

NO KNEADING: Bread is like people it has it’s own personality. This particular variety does not require kneading – now some of you may miss this step, but I can tell you, at the end of a long day, when you feel like baking but don’t have much time nor want the physical work out - this recipe keeps things simple.

FOR 1 LOAF

• 320g (0.42 L) white flour
• 145g (1.9 dl) cracked wheat
• 75g (1.13 dl) whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 0.25 dl milk
• 0.025 dl water
• 13g fresh yeast

1. Butter then flour a loaf tin (25 x 10cm) and set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the white flour, cracked wheat, whole wheat flour and salt and mix well. Set aside.
3. Next, in a small saucepan, combine the milk and water, and heat until the milk is slightly warm to the touch.
4. Measure out the fresh yeast, and in a small bowl combine with 3 tablespoons of the warm milk. Mix well until all the yeast is dissolved.
5. Add the yeast mixture to the remaining warm milk and mix well.
6. Now add all the milk mixture to the flour mixture.
7. Using ONLY A WOODEN SPOON mix until all the flour is absorbed. DO NOT KNEAD the dough. You will have a rather DRY dough, do not worry this is normal – all is going according to plan!
8. Evenly spread the dough into the prepared loaf tin, then cover it well with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for 1 hour.
9. Preheat the oven to 225°C (430°F)
10. Next place in the oven to cook for 30 minutes. When the timer goes, remove the bread from the oven, and still using the OVENMITS, cover the loaf tin with a layer of aluminium foil, and place back into the oven to cook for another 30 minutes.
11. When finished baking, remove from the loaf tin and set on a baking tray to cool. Using a pastry brush, brush the top of the bread with a little water.

NOTE: This bread dries out easily so once fully cooled make sure it is well covered in aluminum foil for storing . Makes excellent toast, served with cheese or pathé as per the traditional Swedish breakfast which I love. I recently learned that Swedish baking recipes are written using volume measurements ie litres (L) and decilitres (dl) as included in this post.

Can you believe that it is the end of the month already! It just crept up on me… which means that Christmas is only a few short weeks away, as is all the wonderful festive cooking & baking. And to get my kneading muscles in shape – Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups blog , host of this months DARING BAKERS challenge, has set us the task of making ‘Tender Potato Bread’.

  I was really looking forward to this challenge, as lately I have found myself drawn to making bread - I don’t know if it is the cold weather or the need to bake that is the root, but the results have been encouraging! So far I have my mother-in-law’s recipe for ‘tresse au beurre’ (like a braided/platted brioche bread) and a Swedish rhye bread under my belt. There was a small incident in which the Swedish dough took on a life of its own and starting climbing out of the bowl… the bowl was too small, the yeast was too strong, and well I was too slow. However the situation was saved just in the nick of time & all turned out well, including two lovely golden loaves.

So when it came time to tackle the DB challenge, I was ready. To personalise the recipe (within the allowed modifications of course) I created a savoury pesto & pine-nut version, brushing the tops with a light egg wash to give them that lovely gleam, and then sprinkled them with pine-nuts – the ones I bought in Barcelona at E&A Gispert this summer and had been saving!!! I also halved the recipe, which scaled down nicely, producing fifteen small rolls, but for the purpose of this competition I have posted the original recipe.

RECIPE – SWEET PEA BLOG

• 4 medium/large floury (baking) potatoes
• 1 teaspoon + 1 tablespoons salt
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 6 1/2 to 8 1/2 cups (1kg – 1.4kg) unbleached all-purpose white flour (I used N° 45)
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup (130g ) whole wheat flour
• 4 heaping tablespoons of pesto (preferably with large chunks of pine-nuts)
• 1 egg for egg wash
• 2 tablespoons pine-nuts for decoration

Making the dough by hand:

1. Peel the potatoes & cut them into cubes. In a large sauce pan, bring the 4 cups of water & the potato cubes to the boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and cook, half covered, until the potatoes are very tender.
2. Drain the potatoes, SAVING THE POTATO WATER, and place them in the bowl you intend to make the dough in. Mash the potatoes well, until you have a very smooth consistency. Next measure out 3 cups (750mL) of the reserved potato water (add a little extra water if you don’t have enough) and add it to the mashed potatoes. Mix well. Leave to cool until you can submerge your hand in the mixture without discomfort.
3. In a separate bowl add the yeast to 1 cup of white flour and mix well. Now add to the cooled potato/water mixture, and mix well. Let rest for 5 minutes.
4. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of salt, the pesto and the softened butter, mix well. Add the 1 cup of whole wheat flour followed by 2 cups of white flour and mix until all the flour is absorbed.  You have only used 4 of the 6.5-8.5 cups of flour suggested at this point. The remaining flour will be added as you knead the dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface (not joking hear as the dough is really sticky!!!) and knead for 10 minutes adding more flour as you need. Place the soft dough in a large greased bowl, cover and leave in a warm place to rise for 2 hours.
6. Once again turn the raised dough onto a well floured surface, and knead gently.
7. Now cut the dough into 15+  equal pieces – shaping each into a ball and place on a baking sheet (lined with baking paper) with a few centimeters between each. Leave to rise for another 30 minutes.
8. Whisk the egg, and then brush each ball of dough and then sprinkle the tops with a few pine-nuts.  
9. My oven is very hot so I cooked the rolls at 220°C (428°F) for 10 minutes and then turned the heat down to 190°C (375°F) and cooked them for another 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on a drying rack.

NOTE: In the future I think I will add a little more white flour directly to the dough before kneading it for the 1st time, to make the dough more manageable. I found it to be overly sticky and a little difficult to manage even after the dough had absorbed a good quantity of flour. The pesto helped with the salt in my version of the recipe, but if I didn’t add it and made a simple potato bread, I would add a little extra salt, either to the dough or sprinkled on top. I would also not cover the rolls with plastic wrap as they stick to it when they have risen, instead I used a clean dry handtowel.