Success with Brioche, finally! Some questions though
Hi all,
After countless attempts, I was finally successful!
The only problem is, I'm not sure exactly what I did that made it work! My process was:
1. Mix all ingredients except butter
2. Room temp autolyse 30 mins
3. Knead until incorporated
4. Gradually work in cool (quite firm) butter
5. Knead until dough comes off bench/hands easily
6. 30 mins in fridge
7. Stretch/fold
repeat 6&7 once more
8. Refrigerate 2 days
9. Flatten, shape, proof to double size
10. Bake
My previous attempts were crumbly, firm and unsatisfying, whereas this one was like biting into a cloud. The difference couldn't be more pronounced. The only difference in process I can recall is adding very cool butter and 2 days instead of 1 in the fridge.
So my questions are:
1. I think the difference was the temperature of the butter, does anyone think the extra day in the fridge would've mattered?
2. The bread seemed very dry and stale on just the second day, despite storing in a sealed box. Any idea why?
3. Any steps you think I could cut out to optimise the process?
Some shots:
http://imgur.com/b6xb6XG
Recipe:
1.75 cups bread flour
4 yolks
2 Tb sugar
1 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
125g butter
What makes fluffy bread is the proper hydration (ratio of liquids to flour), time for the flour to soak up the liquids, and knead to windowpane. Keeping an enriched dough cool during kneading prevents the butter from "breaking" and the dough getting that oily feel.
That being said, I use the Lazy Man's Brioche recipe here on this site. Easy and delicious but a stand mixer helps.
Try searching "Txfarmer" on this site for some great, well-illustrated posts on getting fluffy bread. She does a beautiful Hokkaido Milk Bread post.
Thanks for the reply. Actually, my recipe is almost exactly half the amount of the lazy man's brioche except I use the full amount of butter.
The big issue with my process is that I don't have a mixer, so I have to do it all manually.
That link did confirm my suspicion about the cool butter though.