Hi everyone,

I just wanted to take a minute and introduce myself. This is my first foray into the world of online baking communities…

I completed pastry school and earned my Grande Diplome from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris many years ago.  In addition, I hold multiple professional certificates in bread baking and venoisserie.  In other words, I’m a pastry chef.  

Like a lot of you, for years I have tried to make high quality venoisserie, brioche, croissants and baguettes using domestic flour, but I couldn’t seem to make it work with the flour we have available to us here in the States.  After all that time and money spent learning how to make them, needless to say, it left me more than a bit frustrated.  I searched and searched the internet and found many people trying “add a little of this or a little of that or try this or that”.  None of it worked to my satisfaction.  Actually, no one posted that they had great success either. 

I went to the top of the mountain, Grands Moulins de Paris (GMP), in a little town north of Paris by the name of Gennevilliers.  They are the largest mill company in Europe and arguably the best food and grain laboratory in the world.

My good friends and chefs in Paris tried to help me figure it out. The people at GMP tell me the flour that we have now developed is superior to type 45 and 55 French flour in every aspect.  

Knowing that there was no real solution for bakers in the States, I decided to turn my passion into my life’s work to provide this flour.  After all, we deserve high quality breads as much as Europeans.

The flour is not bleached.  The protein content is 11.5%.  There is ascorbic acid added as a preservative.  The deactivated enzymes, lipids and proteins, etc., added make the difference.  I believe one of the major benefits is derived from the enzymes that allow the starch to be broken down to complex sugars and the complex sugars to be broken down to simple sugars in the second proof.  Kind of complicated but really simple. The enzymes let the yeast live and the starches work as nature intended. Other than the vitamin C, everything added appears naturally in wheat.  Domestic mill companies buy the wheat and mill it so it has maximum shelf life.  We add the good stuff back. Just take a look at the breads on our website http://www.bdflour.com.  The beautiful color on the exterior of the breads come from the caramelization of the sugars, and of course, a good egg wash.

So, for the pastry students returning to the States, the product offers the opportunity to actually recreate what they learned to make abroad.

For the professional baker, the product will help you save money while creating a superior product possessing unmatched taste, texture, smell, appearance, and quality. Here’s a good example of how it saves you money: typically, American croissants weigh approximately 100 grams. B & D Croissant Flour creates a stronger dough, allowing for the same size croissant to weigh around 60 grams. This means that you not only use half the flour per croissant, but you use half of all other ingredients as well.

And for the at home bakers, well, the product allows you to make the best croissants, brioche and breads that you’ve ever tasted.

I’m excited to join the community of online bakers, and I welcome your questions and comments.  I encourage you to check out the website at http://www.bdflour.com, and, of course, hope some of you will venture to try the product.

Bart

Before today I'd never tasted nor baked Brioche. Yesterday I began by making the dough,  and today I made two tries baking it.

First Try

The crumb, and flavor, seem to be what I should expect, from this dough, so for a first time, ever, I'm pleased, especially after reading all the cautions--offered by the author, and elsewhere--about making high fat percentage doughs; but as you can see I have a long way to go learning to construct these rascals correctly. I've nicknamed the one in the upper left corner Nearly Headless Nick (Harry Potter fans will recognize the name.)

The formula is from "Baking Artisan Bread" by Ciril Hitz, and I followed it and the author's instructions to the letter, except constructing the individual rolls.  The ones shown were constructed using the little-ball-on-top-of-the-bigger ball approach. Additionally, the intructions called for 90g of dough for each mold, and I thought my molds were the same size as those shown in the author's pictures. They weren't.  One head slipped off entirely. The oven spring in this dough made them look more like popovers than brioche in my forms.

So I tried again. using some of the reserved dough--thus the 1 and 1/2 tries--with three changes. First I reduced the quantity for each mold to 65g, secondly, I'd baked the first four at 345°F on the oven's convection mode, as recommended by the author; the 1 and 1/2 try I used the recommended 265°F thermal mode setting, and lastly, I used the author's novel shaping. Here's an attempt to explain it in words. Starting with the dough pre-shaped into a ball, by pressing and rolling with one finger two balls--one large, one small--connected by a thin neck of dough is created. Then, the neck is stretched to three fingers width, the larger ball is turned into a doughnut shape, and the smaller ball--neck intact--is passed through the doughnut hole, and the doughnut shape is gently coaxed to collapse around the now curved neck. (I  hope readers can visualize this. I couldn't have done it with out the author's pictures.)

Try 1 and 1/2

Photo says it for me. Far from perfect, but OK.

David G

I need to know the approximate amount of brioche dough that is appropriate for my fluted brioche mold. The mold is about 3" high with a bottom diameter of about 3". The liquid capacity is about 5 & 3/4 cups.

I'm participating in The BBA Challenge

We are a group of home bakers with a crazy goal in mind: to attempt every single recipe in Peter Reinhart’s book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.

Reinhart's brioche recipe makes 2 pounds of dough; I want to scale down the recipe ingredients so I only make one loaf using the brioche mold I own (and have never used!).

Here is my brioche. I did not use any butter for this brioche. But instead of it, includes a lot of eggs. And I knead the dough longer than usual. In case you should be interested in this bread, I'm happy to tell you my baking report in English. Please leave your comment at http://in-the-fields.seesaa.net/article/108906391.html.

For any of those who might be interested, I've chronicled my latest foray into brioche here:

http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=111

SteveB 

Hey everyone I have a sweet dough question.

I was reading through Richard Bertinet's "Crust" and noted that his recipe for Brioche calls for a rest of 12 - 14 hours in a pantry.  Now I have experienced this kind of rest with biga's or a poolish starter to help develop the flavor but with a sweet dough?  I admit that I am not very experienced with sweet doughs but I have to ask:

1. What is the purpose of a 12 - 14 hour rest with a sweet dough?

2. Do you have a favorite brioche recipe you could share?

Thanks a ton,

Lewis

http://tablebread.blogspot.com

Hello to one and all, and thank you for your truly informative, helpful, encouraging and inspirational website.

I am a competent baker who learned to bake many years ago and just never have enough time to practice enough. At the moment I have a short interlude of R&R in which to immerse myself in TFL and try and rectify an ongoing issue that has been plaguing me for what seems like FOREVER.

The recipes that I use to make both my Brioche and my Challah come from my grandmother. They make completely yummy bread the only problem (in my mind) is my crumb. It comes out like, well, cake. Now I realise this is what Marie-Antoinette was on about ... but ... I would like my crumb to be more like the doughy, chewy, cotton-wool-style interior that I remember from my childhood (just like my grandmother used to make) that also the commercially produced challah and brioche seem to manage. Unfortunately my grandmother is no longer around to ask about how she did it.

So I would be sooo happy if any of you MARVELOUS bakers out there on this excellent site have any good advice for me.

Thanking you in advance.

Aunty Sharm (takes constructive criticism well) 

I tried to make some brioche dough today and I thought all was well until I put it in the fridge to proof and 20 minutes later I found that it was as hard as a rock. Is this normal? If not, what should I do? Is my bread ruined?

i'm making brioche for the first time, and since i don't have the classic brioche forms but wish to make my brioche in small sizes, am wondering what other people use in this regard.

i have a classic pannettone form which is ideal for a very large brioche, and i have other large forms, but want smaller brioche.  wondering if my cermamic individually sized creme brullee forms would work for brioche.

thanks.

jeff 

G'day from Sydney. I am testing various Brioche Recipes over the next few months to find one I like the best. I made the recipe from Julia Childs book 'Baking with Julia' on page 43. The bricohe turned out well and I was pleased with the overall result. Nice crumb, texture, flavour but when mixing at the second stage (adding the sponge to the final ingredients) and mixing for 15 to 20 min, I had to add more flour than her recipe called for. I used a kitchen aid mixer as well. The final mix calls for 1 1/2 cups of flour. It was 2 a.m.