Brioche

After months of researching, reading and mulling over it, I finally got enough nerve to try baking bread. More specifically, brioche. While I was at it, I might as well make the most finicky version right? So here is the "rich man's" brioche. More like cake than bread and probably similar in artery-clogging effect.

 

For once, I decided to be like the food bloggers and have my mise en place instead of haphazardly running about the kitchen gathering ingredients. Most likely inspired by the first attempt at making bread which resulted in the discovery at 2am that there was no yeast in the house. Thankfully adding yeast to milk is the first step in the recipe.

Attempt #1 aka the trial run - it tastes good! A little more like cake than bread but there was a nice crumb.

Honestly, anything with that amount of butter would taste good. Satisfied that it was of sufficient quality to give to J&C and Pastors, it was on to batch #2. What I actually did was to make one big batch and halve it. The first batch was tested on family, friends and colleagues. The other half batch was frozen and defrosted so I could bake it on the weekend I wanted to give it to J&C and Pastors. That turned out to be a better idea as the dough was able to proof for an extended period of time and resulted in a better texture.

This time I remembered to take a photo before the bread was baked! Well. sort of anyway, this was taken through the glass of the oven door.

I had some nice chocolate ganache left over from another baking project, so that went into the bread. Pain au chocolat. Yum! The remaining dough was shaped into pull apart buns. *just in case, say, someone didn't like chocolate bread.* Don't ask me why I thought anyone would not like chocolate bread. In any case, here's what the innards of a loaf look like:

 

Sorry for the crap image, my phone doesn't work well under low lighting conditions.

Finally, all prettied up and ready for gifting!