Brioche... My Nemesis. Part II

Since my less-than-stellar attempt to make brioche a couple of weekends ago, I have moved on to a couple of other more successful recipes.  I soothed my bruised ego with a batch of good ol' back-to-basics Chocolate Chip Cookies, put together a pretty decent Bread Pudding from the least disastrous batch of brioche, and padded down memory lane with some paw-printed Macarons for my May Mactweets challenge.   All of these have helped to boost my confidence and fade the memory of defeat just enough  to make it possible for me to head back into battle once more.

As you may remember, I attempted three batches of brioche, from two different recipes - one of which that had omitted one very necessary ingredient:  MILK.  The second recipe had all the ingredients listed, but it was still a bust - unless you like warty hunks of unmixed dough in your brioche, and I'm suspecting you don't.  For attempt #4 I decided to go with yet another recipe for this pesky little dough, and I am pleased to say - SUCCESS!  This dough turned out tender and buttery and exactly the way I wanted.  Whew!  I can finally check this one off my list!

I again read through the recipe a full three times before starting - once bitten, twice shy, you could say.  It all looked very simple and straightforward, and wildly different from the other two recipes I had failed with before.  As far as I could tell, this was a good sign.  I should mention I had also decided it was time to consult the fine folks at Cook's Illustrated for some extra insurance - their recipes never seem to fail for me, and thankfully this was no exception.

Once the dough was behaving properly, I improvised and used it to make some lovely cinnamon rolls for my mum.  She loves cinnamon buns, and I like baking treats for my mum, no special occasion necessary.  I made a spread from unsalted butter, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg, along with some vanilla and salt to polish up the flavours a bit.  For a contrast of texture, I toasted & chopped up some lovely fresh walnuts and sprinkled them over top of the cinnamon-sugar-butter spread out on the rolled out dough.  Then it was a simple matter of rolling it all up, slicing into rolls and tucking them into the pans.  Left to their own devices for an hour, they were plump and puffy and all cuddled up to one another, and ready for their trip to the oven.  Breathing a huge sigh of relief at having finally won the Battle of the Brioche, I tidied up the kitchen while enjoying the warm, spicy smells from the oven.  Thankfully, once they were done baking, they didn't take too much time cooling down to a temperature that hubby and I could enjoy a taste without scalding the roofs of our mouths.

These cinnamon brioche rolls tasted wonderful - as good as I could have hoped for.  I'm sure they would still have been good had I not struggled my way through 3 botched batches before this one, but I was certainly savouring them so much more after all the hard work I put into them.

So, for those of you who haven't been completely scared off by my initial defeats, I hope you will give this recipe a try.  It's pretty easy, and a much quicker recipe than the first three.  Most importantly - it actually lists all of the ingredients you need to make it.

Happy Baking!

Quick Cinnamon Brioche Rolls
(adapted form Cook's Illustrated)
makes 12 rolls

Brioche
2 1/2 tsp (1 envelope) dry active yeast
1/2 Cup (120ml) whole milk, warmed to approximately 110˚F
2 1/4 Cups (320g) all-purpose flour
6 Tbsp (90g) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 Tbsp (45g) granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs

Filling
1/2 Cup (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 Cup (100g) dark brown sugar
1 tsp (5g) cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract
1 Cup (75g) walnuts

Directions
Begin by making the sponge:  in a small bowl, whisk together the yeast and the milk, then stir in 1 Cup (142g) of the flour.  Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a draft-free area.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine butter, sugar and salt until well blended and smooth.  Add the eggs, one at a time, processing after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the workbowl and process again for several seconds until well blended.  Don't worry if the mixture looks curdled at this point.  Add the remaining 1 1/4 Cups (178g) of flour and process in 1-second pulses until thoroughly combined.  Finally, add in the sponge, and pulse again until a smooth dough forms.  Then process continuously for 15 seconds.  The dough will be quite sticky at this point.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and gently knead until smooth and elastic.  Form into a smooth, round ball and place in a large, buttered bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap or a slightly damp towel and let the dough rise for about 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.

While the dough is rising, make the filling.  In a small bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, spices, salt and vanilla, and whisk until fluffy.  In a saute pan over medium heat, toast the walnuts, being careful not to let them burn.  The nuts are done when they are fragrant and lightly toasted.  Immediately remove the nuts from the pan, onto a chopping board and allow them to cool slightly.  Finely chop the walnuts, and set aside.  Generously butter a 9x13 baking pan and set aside.

Once the dough has doubled in size, turn the dough out onto generously floured surface. Gently knead the dough and roll it out into a large rectangle, roughly 12 inches x 18 inches.  Spread the cinnamon butter mixture evenly over the dough, leaving about 1 inch of dough along the top, so the roll can be sealed.  Sprinkle the chopped walnuts over the butter spread and gently press the nuts into the mixture.  Gently roll up the dough until you are close to the clean edge of the dough.  Using your fingers and cold water and wet the clean edge of the dough, then finish rolling up the dough, and pinch along the seam to create a seal.  Using very gentle pressure and a serrated knife, cut the dough log in half, and then cut each half into half again.  Finally, cut each section into three rolls, and place each pice, cut side up, into the buttered baking pan.  Cover with plastic wrap or a lightly damp towel and allow to rise for about 45-60 minutes.

Move oven rack to the centre position and preheat oven to 350˚F.  Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 180˚F when inserted into the centre of the pan. Turn pan upside down onto a service plate and immediately remove the baking pan.  Allow the rolls to cool for 5-10 minutes before devouring.

Salvaging Mediocre Brioche

April showers bring May flowers, but I don't know what the hell April snowstorms bring... misery perhaps?  An incredibly strong urge to head for the airport, passport and credit card in hand?  Ok, so technically it's May now, but that doesn't make a spring snowfall any more welcoming.  In just 24 hours, I went from wearing sandals & enjoying a coffee in the morning sun, to shoveling my car out from under a mass of heavy, wet snow, cursing under my breath the whole time.  It's true, winter is foe, not friend to I, and a heavy snowfall in spring just makes me downright cranky... just ask my hubby.  Just ask *anybody* who has seen me on a snowy day.

Of course, my mood is already fragile because of the weekend I killed, trying to make a simple brioche to enjoy for breakfast on Saturday.  I began right after work on Friday, and the ordeal ended at 11:59 pm Sunday night, when I finally pulled the final batch from the oven... not exactly how I had originally envisioned my weekend.  Well, the "good" news is that Batch #2, the batch that I added milk to, even though the recipe didn't ever call for milk... well, while quite bland, it did at least turn out to be edible.  When I bake, I am definitely aiming for more than "edible".  I want "OMG" "delicious" or just a simple groan of pleasure... and I was nowhere near that with this batch.  OK, so how do I make mediocre brioche into something that's actually enjoyable to eat?  Well, thanks once again to my unofficial brioche coach, Cecilia at OneVanillaBean, suggested french toast or bread pudding.  Haha!  Great idea!  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.  French toast is more a weekend thing for me, and we were now as far from the weekend as one can get, so Bread Pudding it is!

Like Carrot Pudding, Bread Pudding is one of those foods I typically associate with winter.  Three days ago, I was thinking more about fruit sorbets and BBQ than creamy, warm, custardy pudding and a nice hot cup of coffee, but Mother Nature changed all that the minute she dropped the first snowflake on my lawn.  Suddenly, cozy comfort food is looking just fine..

This bread pudding is fantastically easy to prepare, though it's not an "instant gratification" recipe.  First, all that dry bread needs some time to soak up all that custardy goodness, before it has a nice long sit in a warm oven, and another rest on a cooling rack before you can dig in.  Rest assured, in return for your patience, you will be rewarded with the culinary equivalent of a nice warm blanket to soothe cold tastebuds.  You can also throw in a variety of extra goodies to suit your mood:  currants, some nice berries, toasted nuts, chunks of rich, dark chocolate... or simply play around with different liquors to flavour the pudding with.  This is a great time to let your cravings call the shots.  Oh, and don't worry if you haven't got any mediocre brioche lying around, pretty much any old bread will work.


Bread Pudding
adapted from Cook's Illustrated
serves 8-10


1 1/2 Tbsp (22g) melted, unsalted butter, plus more for greasing pans 

2 Tbsp (30g) demerara sugar, or dark brown sugar

1 Tbsp (15g) granulated sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt
4 large eggs

1 large egg yolk
3/4 Cup (150g) granulated sugar
2 1/2 Cups (600ml) whole milk
2 1/2 Cups (600ml) heavy cream
3 Tbsp (45ml) dark rum, or favourite liquor
1 Tbsp (15ml) vanilla extract
3/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp salt
8 Cups stale bread, cut into cubes

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350˚F and place rack in lower third of oven.  Brush baking pan or ramekins with unsalted butter and set aside.  In a small bowl, combine the demerara and granulated sugars with the cinnamon & salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, cream, rum, vanilla, salt and spices, and whisk together until well blended.  Stir in about 6 cups of the stale bread cubes, reserving the rest for the topping.  Allow the bread to soak in the custard mixture for about 20-30 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, add the remaining bread cubes, the melted butter and about 2 tsp of the cinnamon sugar, and toss until the bread is well coated.   Pour the custard and soaked bread mixture into the prepared pan (if using several small ramekins, evenly distribute the soaked bread, then ladle custard mixture over top, dividing the custard evenly among the ramekins).  Scatter the buttered bread over the top of the puddings, and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar overtop.  Bake for 45-50 minutes.  The Pudding should be golden brown, puffy and it should jiggle just slightly in the centre when shaken.  Allow to cool for 30-45 minutes before serving.

Happy Baking!

Brioche... My Nemesis. Part I

Baking inspiration is all around me, and every where I look these days, I'm being inspired to make brioche.  Magazines, menus, blogs... I can take a hint - brioche is begging to be made!  So, after a less than spectacular day where anything and everything seemed to go awry, I came home and set about making some delicious, rich, buttery bread for hubby and I to enjoy in the morning.  I admit, it was an ambitious task for me to attempt when the universe was working against me.  BAH!  Mind over matter!  Suck it up, princess!  Get crackin' on that bread!!!

Did I mention that I've never made brioche before?  Not that it matters - I don't scare easily in the kitchen.  There's a first time for everything.

I thumbed through half a dozen different cookbooks, trying to decide which recipe was best.  I wanted a fairly large recipe, so that I would have something to share with the gang at work on Monday, and since they all looked pretty similar, I grabbed the recipe with the biggest yield and started gathering ingredients.  I made the yeast sponge, and set it aside to do it's fat & happy yeast dance and get all puffy, while I measured out flour and butter.  Flour, eggs and sponge all went into the mixer bowl and the dough hook began twirling around.  So far so good.  After a couple of minutes, I peeked into the bowl and saw a big heavy gob of dough was clinging for dear life to the dough hook and there was a *lot* of dry ingredients still sitting at the bottom.  Hmmm... that's weird.  I checked the recipe again - no mention of such a phenomenon.  I stuck my hand in the bowl and gave the stiff dough a couple of kneads by hand, making my best effort to incorporate the dry flour.  It seemed to improve a bit, so I turned the mixer back on and let it work the dough for another couple of minutes.  There wasn't a lot of improvement, but I decided that perhaps the next step would help: "cover the bowl with a moist towel and let it rest for 20 minutes".  That left me 20 minutes to try and problem solve.  That's when I noticed all of the other recipes called for milk, but the one I was working with did not.  I did think it slightly odd at first - in fact, when gathering ingredients to get started, I grabbed the carton of milk, expecting it would be needed - after all, I was making brioche, a bread well known for it's richness due to all the butter and eggs and milk involved.  But I saw it was nowhere in the ingredient list and put it back in the fridge.  Now, however, the absence of milk was making me suspicious... I re-read the entire recipe another three times, looking for something I had missed.  After all, this was a book written by a highly-respected chef and cooking instructor - *I* had obviously skipped a step or messed up somehow.  Nope, I had done everything the recipe had asked me to.  Something was just not right....... 

Twenty minutes were up, so I removed the damp towel, poked the still-stiff dough, shrugged my shoulders and turned the mixer back on.  Minutes passed but nothing changed.  Frustrated, I pulled the failed batch of dough from the mixer, threw it into a greased bowl and set it aside to do whatever it was going to do... magically become a soft, chewy "surprise bread", or a new stepping stone for the garden perhaps - who knew?

Still somewhat convinced that I had simply screwed up the recipe, I went back to square one and started on batch number two.  Batch two was going about as well as batch one.  Annoyed, I grabbed the computer and googled the cookbook title and "typo" to see if perhaps I was not the only person who had encountered problems with this particular recipe.  Bingo.  I was not alone.  Amazon even had a couple of reviews that mentioned typos in this book - not in the brioche recipe specifically, but a couple of others.  I was no longer simply frustrated - I was mad.  I felt betrayed.  This was a highly recommended cookbook!  It had quotes of praise on the sleeve from the likes of Flo Braker and Dorie Greenspan... how could this book have gone to print with what was turning out to be numerous error, typos and ingredient omissions?

We're all human, and we all make mistakes.  I am not immune, and neither are chefs or people in the publishing industry, but I imagine that cookbooks likely go through a number of edits, re-edits, recipe testing, another edit, more testing... all in the name of quality control for a product your are putting out there with your name (and reputation) on the line.  They're certainly not immune to typo's either - in fact there was recent chatter about a very expensive cookbook typo (like, I'm talking $20K expensive), because one of the recipes called for "salt and freshly ground black people" instead of pepper.  Ouch!  Anyway - still peeved, I quickly turned to the front of the book and read the acknowledgement page: "much appreciation goes to XX, my copy editor, for her amazing attention to detail, as well as to proofreader XX...."  All I could do was laugh and wonder to myself if Chef still felt this way - or was he even aware of the errors in his book?  Surely the publisher would be correcting these errors and re-printing soon.  I was also alarmed at web reviews of the book that said it would be "perfect for the beginner" - ya sure, if you want them to give up baking forever because of horrible failures that are not their fault!  Once corrected, however, it really will be a great book for beginners, but not in it's current state.

Anyway, 10 eggs and 6 cups of flour into my attempts for warm, rich brioche, all I could do was shake my head and started calculating.  I scanned the other recipes I had and compared the ratios of ingredients for each.  From what I could tell, 1/2 cup should be approximately how much milk should be in the recipe I had - though I knew I wasn't adding it at the right stage of the recipe.  Oh well, I had nothing left to lose at this point, and it was past 11 pm...I was clearly NOT going to be having brioche with my morning coffee. 

Milk went in, mixer on, and I started cleaning the kitchen.  Every minute or so, I checked on the dough, and eventually, it began to look the way a proper dough should look.  I accepted this small victory, transferred the dough from the mixer to a buttered bowl and put it in the fridge for the night.  Exhausted, I loaded the dishwasher, wiped the counters and went to bed.

Day 2

I awoke this morning, refreshed and optimistic.  It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and I had slept well.   I made a quick trip to the store for more eggs and yeast before hubby headed out for the day, then the pups and I set out for a nice long walk to Starbucks for some coffee & sunshine.  Returning home with two tired dogs meant I could bake in peace.  The first step was to select a different recipe to use - the last thing I wanted was a repeat of last night.  As extra insurance, I read through it twice before gathering my ingredients and getting started.  I also removed the two failed batches of dough from the fridge and let them rest on the counter - after all without baking them, I couldn't accurately judge how badly they turned out.  

For batch 3, I began by combining the flour and yeast, then adding the sugar, milk and eggs and set the dough hook into action.  As the dough came together, it was looking mildly better than either of my previous attempts, but it still would not come together as one cohesive mass.  I rested the dough under a damp towel before incorporating the butter.  The butter was the recommended temperature, but the it never seemed to actually incorporate with the dough so much as coat the outside of the dough and break the dough apart into smaller chunks.  I scraped down the dough hook and bowl and turned the mixer back on, but nothing changed.  At this point, I could see a dark cloud creeping into my sunshiny good day.  Three more times, I scraped everything down and put the mixer through it's paces, but the only progress being made was that the bowl on my mixer was gradually becoming wrenched tighter and tighter onto the base - to the point that when I wanted to remove the bowl I couldn't.  Nothing I did could wrench the bowl free from the stand - I finally had to call hubby in to help.  Even then, it took the pair of us to finally pry it loose!

I worked the dough by hand in attempt to get it into one cohesive mass again, but no luck.  I returned the bowl to the mixer one final time, turned the mixer on medium and let the darn thing run.  Minutes later, I turned to see that my mixer was shimmying its way to the edge of the counter.   I pulled the machine back into place and scraped the dough hook down once more - see, I can be a bit stubborn sometimes, and there was no way I was going to be defeated by brioche!  About 15 minutes later, my poor mixer whining away and in danger of over-heating, the dough was finally starting to come together... HA!  Take THAT brioche!  I grabbed the ball of dough and set it on the counter beside my now-baked Batch #1, and my hand-kneaded Batch #2 (which was looking pretty good actually).  I started to work Batch #3 a bit by hand, just enough to get it into a smooth mound ready for a nice snooze in a bowl.  Only it never became a smooth mound.  It was smooth-ish dough with hunks of un-buttered dough dispersed throughout.  It honestly looked like my dough had warts!  And they just peeled away from the smooth dough.  It was pretty clear to me at this point that brioche and I were clearly not meant to be in anything more than a one-sided relationship.  I could be in love with brioche, but brioche was only going to smile politely and keep it's distance from me.  I could picture the scene in my head; brioche giving me the old "it's not you, it's me" routine... ya, sure, Brioche.  Whatever, at least have the decency to be straight with me!

At this point I shot a short video and sent it out to my food blog friends in Twitter-land.  A baking 911 call for help.  Batch #1 was in fact going to make a great stepping stone for the garden - rock hard.  Batch #2 was looking somewhat promising, and the warty science experiment that Batch #3 had become.  Meanwhile, I took #2 and tucked it into various sized molds for baking, put it into the oven and headed for a shower.  It was beginning to look like I wasn't even going to have warm brioche tomorrow morning... grrrrrrrrr.

Much to my surprise, #2 came from the oven and looked quite promising.  It certainly looked like the real deal.  It wasn't even rock hard like #1, it may even be edible!  The only way to tell for sure was to rip open one of the small brioche à têtes and give it a taste.  hmmmm.... well, not surprisingly, it was obvioulsy not the deliciously sweet brioches I had tasted in France, but it *was* edible.  Maybe with a bit of strawberry jam or cinnamon butter, it could pass.  No one would be repulsed by it, but this was merely a consolation prize for all my hard work. 

I won't give up.  In fact, the fabulous Cecilia over at OneVanillaBean, who has a nice batch of brioche resting on her counter, is making some notes for those of us who are clearly not up to snuff in brioche's eyes.  Hopefully I learn the tricks I need from her, maybe then I can win brioche's heart.  Fingers crossed.

One thing I know for certain;  It ain't over, Brioche.  You may have won the battle, but you will not win the war!

Now I'm going to go put some cookies in the oven, just to prove to myself that I *can* bake....