If the sweet aroma of freshly rising bread means an "absolute baking delight" to you, then you may want to consider inviting friends and family over to get their share of home bread baking enjoyment too! Put into practice your love for baking and pastry, and impress them with this scrumptious, homemade brioche loaf, right off you own kitchen oven. The bread recipe is so simple, and its ingredients are pantry-friendly. All you need is:
Ingredients:
- 3 1/2 Cups of all purpose flour. (500 grams)
- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp of granulated sugar (40 grams)
- 2 large eggs (or 3 small eggs)
- 1 Cup of warm milk (250 ml)
- 90 grams of softened unsalted butter (room temperature).
- 1 tsp of salt.
- 1 tbsp of bread instant dry yeast.
Egg Glaze:
- 1 egg yolk.
- few drops of vanilla.
- few drops of milk.
- pinch of sugar.
- Line standard non-stick loaf pan with parchment paper and grease with butter, then set aside.
- In a large measuring cup, gently whisk 2 large eggs into 250 ml (1 cup) of warm milk and set aside.
- In a large bowl of an electric mixer, run whisk attachment through 500 grams of all purpose flour and 1 tbsp of bread dry yeast. Add in 1 tsp of salt and whisk till combined.
- With dough hook fitted, gradually add in milk mixture to flour mixture, and beat in for 5 minutes.
- With an electric mixer is still running, gradually add in 90 grams of softened unsalted butter (1 tbsp at at a time) and knead for another 10 minutes until all blended and dough is well formed.
- Gather brioche dough and gently knead by tapping and folding it onto slightly floured worktop. You should end up with smooth, ball-like dough.
- Place dough in a large bowl, cover, keep in warm place, and let rise and double in size for 1 hour.
- When risen, gently gather bread dough with your finger tips by lifting it and folding it back toward the center.
- Shape dough according to your preference (braided brioche loaf vs. ordinary brioche loaf)
- Place shaped dough in the standard non-stick loaf pan you have prepared earlier, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise again for another hour.
- Preheat oven to 400 F. Meanwhile, prepare egg glaze, by combining 1 egg yolk, few drops of vanilla, few drops of milk and pinch of sugar. Gently brush top of brioche dough with egg glaze.
- Reduce oven to 350 F, and bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. When done, remove from oven, let cool on a wire rack, then serve.
Baker Note:
- Make sure your bread instant dry yeast is not expired so as to end up with satisfying results.
- In bread baking and pastry making, we often have recipes that call for use of salt and bread yeast, it is strongly recommended that salt and yeast are not combined together. Unlike sugar, salt has a retard affect on the growing activity of yeast, especially if the amount of salt used is not in-balance with the amount of bread yeast being used.
- When you cover bread dough with plastic wrap to double in size for a second time, make sure dough doesn't touch plastic wrap when rising. If that happens, when you remove wrap, dough may collapse and not be able to rise again. To prevent this from happening, let wrap a bit loose toward the end of dough rising time, so as to make room for it to rise comfortably.
