Brioche I - French Butter Bread

Brioche? Have you heard of this French bread before? Well, I did a little research and found that Brioche is a highly enriched French bread, whose high eggs and butter content give it what it seen as a rich and tender butter crumb. It has a dark, golden, and flaky crust from egg wash applied after proofing. A Brioche is normally baked in a fluted round tin; a large ball of dough is placed on the bottom and topped with a smaller ball of dough to form the head."Well, you have been a lot of cakes lately", said my Hubby to me…..hmm, did I? Ok, fine then, maybe I did, because even he kids said so……..and my waistline shows a little disappointment already………OK! I'll bake breads and buns starting this weekend I thought, for a change, since he and the kids voiced out…..and I don't want to add another inch to my waistline or another kg to my bathroom scale, :P
I was a bit fed-up with the traditional 'Sweet Bun Dough' varieties that I have been baking all these while…….as I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone, so I picked 'Brioche' – something not Asian, but French. Since a friend recently told me that I'm quite good in all things French……hehe, let's see if this works ^-^
The recipe I had chose was taken from my own cookbook collection – Alex Goh's The World of Bread. It's pretty straightforward and doesn't look any complicated……well, the only 'unique' step that I found a bit unusual is that it requires the dough to be kept in the freezer for 1 hour, as the refrigeration will solidifies the dough which still rises, albeit slowly making it easier to form before it is being divided into individual buns to be shaped. The outcome was really good, I must admit I like it so much, and so are the kids…….even my little girl, Angelica who seldom is a supporter to anything I baked (except Meringue cookies), but hey, for Brioche……..she ate 3 in a roll and demand for a 4^th one….LOL. This recipe yields only 12 buns and I actually intended to kept some for the boys to bring to school the next day, but ………ended all gone in less than an hour, :P Its was very buttery in taste and smell, the texture was really soft and its good even eaten plain……..though they say its normally being spread with butter, jam or marmalade.
If you are a fan of breads or buns, do add this to your baking list…….it won't disappoint you, I promise ;)

 BRIOCHE
Ingredients:
(A)
250gm bread flour / H.P.flour
1 tsp salt
25gm castor sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
(B)
2 eggs, room temperature
50ml cold water
(C)
100gm butter, softened

Method:

1. Mix (A) till well blended and then add (B) and mix to form a dough.
2. Add (C) and continue to mix to form a smooth, elastic dough.
3. Shape it into a ball. Place it in a bowl and cover with clear cling wrap / kitchen towel and let it rise for 1 hour. (FYI, I went out for breakfast and left it there for 3 hours :P)
4. Knead the dough again and make it into a ball. Cover it again with cling wrap / kitchen towel and put it in the freezer for 1 hour.
   
5. Remove dough from the freezer and divide it into 40gm pieces. Shape them into balls and put them into 8cm brioche fluted mould. Press the centre with your index finger to make a deep indentation.
   
6. Make some small balls from the remaining dough and place them onto the indentations to form the 'head'.
   
7. Brush on some egg wash and leave them to proof for another 50 minutes.
   
8. Brush with egg wash again before putting them into the oven to bake for 15 minutes at preheated oven of 180 degree Celcius.
   
9. Remove from the oven and serve when it's still hot. (But it's as good even after it cools down).
   

Happy Brioche baking!