Publix Breakfast Bread - Please help me tweak recipe!

Andrea,

It is good that you have a recipe to start from and now you will just be tweaking it until you get the bread that you want.  I have converted your recipe into both weight and volume and have added the Baker's percent.  This will make it easier for people to offer suggestions.  Note:  I have attached an image of my spreadsheet because otherwise the formatting would be all messed up.

Your problem:

• Bread rises too much: Try reducing the yeast (by 1/4 to start) or the final rise time
• Bread too dry:  Add more water.  61% Hydration is kind of dry.  If you add 50 grams more of water (3 to 4 TBSP) you will bring it up to about 68%.
• Bread to Fruit Ratio:  Add or reduce the amount of fruit until you get what you want
• Missing Ingredients:  Again try some and then after you bake review your notes and make adjustments for the next bake.

Good luck and enjoy your experiments.  Dwayne

One of the things that will make the bread more moist is the addition of the suggested canned pumpkin. Don't add too much or it will be really sloppy. :)

Also, before you add any diastatic malt (barley malt), check to see if your flour already has malt, barley malt or amylase listed as an ingredient. If it does, you probably don't have to add any more. And if it doesn't, you just need a tiny bit (like a teaspoon).

Here is my Pumpkin Brioche recipe. It might be easier to start tweaking here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20623/pumpkin-brioche-dough-based-lazy-man039s-brioche

***make sure your pumpkin puree is nice and stick-to-the-spoon thick. Some of the cheaper brands are very watery. Either cook the pumpkin puree down or use as-is and reduce the liquid in the recipe.***

I no longer use bread flour-I think it makes bread too chewy. If you want to add prune past or use honey instead of sugar or oil instead of butter, go right ahead. Just reduce the pumpkin to accommodate the prune paste, sub. honey directly or partially for sugar, and sub oil for butter-but I do recommend keeping some butter for flavor. I have made this recipe with all oil. It works but the butter flavor is so delicious. As for pecan meal- I would start by adding 1/4 c-1/2 c.

Bake something delicious and report back!

I found my final recipe writeup!

PUMPKIN BRIOCHE

Add all ingredients to mixer and mix 10-20 minutes until dough silky. Scrape often.

Suggested filling: reserve some canned pumpkin and mix with cinnamon sugar.

Great as pumpkin cinnamon rolls!

Here is the first page with my Lazy Man's Brioche recipe from FloydM (our host on this wonderful website):

***USE THE EGGWASH FOR THAT SHINY LOOK***

Lazy Man’s Brioche        Makes 12 buns-3 oz dough each
 

 For chocolate dough brioche: Add 1 serving packet instant coffee and 4  pouches pre-melted cholcolate (equiv to 4 squares) and increase sugar by 20g or ¼ cup
Filling=1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional) (Chocolate chips and solid choc re-hardens after baking-kind of a chunk.) =Can be stuffed with anything sweet or savory(Indian? BBQ pork?)

=Other ideas: Jam-1 tbsp, Chocolate ganache, White cho with orange marmalade, Almond filling, Any pie filling, Add pannetone fruit and flavor? 

Egg Wash
1 egg
a pinch of salt
a teaspoon water

Add all of the ingredients to your mixer and mix it until the dough becomes silky. This takes a long time, somewhere in the 10-20 minute range (I think I did around 15). If the dough sticks to the sides or the paddle too much, take breaks and scrape the dough back down into the bowl.

When it is well mixed, shape the dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 hour. Degas the dough and allow it to rise a second time, for another hour or so.

Cut the dough into 12 pieces (I used the scale and weighed them out at 3 ounces each). Shape the dough into balls. This fits a large muffin paper very well. If you want to fill them, do so here by placing the chocolate chips on them before pinching them closed. Make sure they are sealed!

Place the dough balls seam side down in brioche pans or muffin tins. Cover loosely and allow to rise until doubled in size and well above the pan, approximately 45 minutes.

While they are rising, make the egg wash and preheat the oven to 365.

Brush the brioche gently with egg wash before putting the pans near the middle of the preheated oven. Bake the brioche for 10 minutes then rotate the pan. Bake them another 10 minutes or until they appear to be done. If your pans were greased well, you should be able to shake the brioche out of the pan while they are still hot. Be careful if the eggwash spilled onto the pans though, because the cooked egg will "glue" the brioche into the pans. I had to gently break through the eggwash with a knife before I could get a few of my buns out of the pans.
 

 Ive recently moved to New England but spent 40 years of my life in Florida.

Sigh, how I miss Publix. 

Their bakery was better than most stand alone bakeries.

Please let us know how this works out. I would love to make this.