Larousse Brioche

This is the brioche parisienne from the latest edition of Larousse des Desserts by Pierre Hermé. It doesn't have any milk which lends a much more tender crumb than every recipe I've made so far. The dough was very wet and it didn't feel like I developed enough gluten before incorporating the butter, it was also hard to shape before panning (I had to use a lot of flour & many turns with a rolling pin.)

I really didn't think it would work out or even rise much, as it felt like the entire thing was just butter. Work out it did though, and what a beautifully satisfying bread.

Here are the proportions

Flour                             190 g

Sugar                            20 g

Active Dry Yeast            5 g

Salt                                4 g

Butter                            150 g

3 eggs

The recipe is supposed to be made with a wooden spoon and a bowl, but I'm not just gonna let my KA sit there and do nothing while my shoulder is falling off. So I had to use what little intuition I've acquired for the mixing time and cannot even remember how long it was. I did let it autolyse for a good 25 mins before kneading again and mixing the butter in.

The lack of milk makes the butter and eggs sing, and delivers a beautiful yellow crumb. I used local eggs and Président butter.

Hope to post a crumb shot later. Happy Baking!

ps: I'm kind of obsessing over brioche at the moment as all my recent posts might show, so if you have a favorite recipe I'd very much like to give it a go. European butter won't use itself!