Brioche dough… for Brioche and fruit tarts…

This dough will make a nice brioche for breakfast, sliced with a thick layer of butter and home made jam it is delicious! But it can also be used as a base for a fruit tart… You decide…. but anyway is good! Be aware though, this dough needs a lot of resting time even though it will only take you about 45 minutes to 1 hour preparation time, there is a minimum of 5,5 hours of waiting time and 30 minutes of cooking.

Ingredients:

For one pound of dough:

5 oz (150gr) of butter at room temperature (a bit more than one stick) and butter for the cake form
0,2 oz (6 gr) of fresh cake yeast
1 tbsp of room temperature milk
1/2 pound (225gr) of flour
2 tbsp of sugar
1 bag of vanilla sugar (2 tsp) or one tsp of vanilla extract and 2 tsp of sugar
3 medium eggs and 1 for the brioche.
Salt

Ingredients for brioche - easyfrenchcooking.com — Ingredients for brioche – easyfrenchcooking.com

The method:

Cut the butter in small pieces (about 1 x 1 in)
reduce the cake yeast in crumbles, add it to the milk and mix well.

Yiest and milk - easyfrenchcooking.com — Yeast and milk before mixing – easyfrenchcooking.com

in a large bowl, pour the flour, the sugar, the vanilla sugar or equivalent, one tsp of salt, and the yeast and milk mix.

At this stage you can use a kitchen stand mixer to knead the dough.

While the mixer is in function, add the whole eggs, one by one.
Add the soft butter (it must be very soft but not melted).
Stop the mixer, with a spatula, remove the dough from the side of the bowl and make a nice round “ball” of dough. To manipulate it more easily you can through a little bit of flour on the top.

Brioche dough - easyfrenchcooking.com — Brioche dough – easyfrenchcooking.com

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in a warm place for 2 hours. The volume should double.

If you want to use the dough as a base for a tart, you should stop here and move to one of the tart recipe.

Nectarines brioche tart - easyfrenchcooking.com — Nectarines brioche tart – easyfrenchcooking.com

To make the brioche…

After 2 hours remove the dough from the bowl and place it on the kitchen worktop. Knead with your fist to remove the air and bring it back to it’s original volume.
Place the dough back in the bowl, film it again and place in a warm place for one hour.
After one hour, remove from the bowl and place back on the worktop, renew the operation. Bring it down with your fist to remove the air and bring it back to it’s original volume. Place it back in the bowl, film the bowl, wait one more hour.
With flour on your hands, place the dough in a cake form previously buttered.
Leave the form with the dough in a warm place again for 1 hour and 30 minutes. The dough should have doubled in volume.
Preheat the oven at 400 degrees
Place the blades of a pair of scissors under luke warm water and make some regular cuts on top of the dough.

Cuts in the brioche – easyfrenchcooking.com

Beat the last egg and brush the whole brioche with the beaten egg.
Place in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes and than reduce the temperature to 350 degrees, bake for another 20 minutes.
Remove from the form when it is still a little warm.

There you go, this recipe is a bit long, but not difficult and worth it if you want a very French breakfast at home. To be honest, I use this dough mainly for the preparation of tarts, the waiting time is than considerably reduced. Enjoy!

Bon Appetit!