April 12, 2015 - 4:31pm
Brioche Help Please
Greetings. New to the board and I am looking for some advice about Brioche Loaves. I have been baking brioche from the Tartine Bakery book. The formula uses a bit of levain, some poolish and then standard brioche ingredients like eggs, milk, flour, commercial yeast, and salt. I am baking hamburger buns as well as loaves. The buns seem to turn out fine, however, the loaves appear to be fine on the top, but the sides and bottom cave in, and in the crumb there is a ring of what looks like unbaked dough around the perimeter.
Does anyone have any experience with this formula for Brioche or could suggest any solutions to get a nice loaf shape?
Thank you!
paul+
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Much like you stated, the dense line across the bottom of the loaf is raw dough, so I would keep it in the pan for 5-10 more minutes, until the sides are nicely browned. Then the loaf will be able to support itself and maintain a pan-style appearance.
The hole could be from shaping, either a bit too much flour, or not knocking back the dough enough. That is my guess without seeing the method.
Thank you Arlo, I suspect, and as I think you are stating, the sides caving in and the raw dough line will all be solved if the loaves cool in the pan for a bit of time?
Do you think it might have anything to do with over mixing? The dough has a fairly high hydration, something in the neighborhood of 65-70%. So it feels very loose. I mixed the dough according to Jeffrey Hamelman's brioche instructions from "Bread" and he advises mixing until the dough is very strong before adding the butter, and then an additional 10 minutes or so after the cold pliable butter has been added. Perhaps the dough lost a bit of extensibility and gained to much elasticity and pulled back in on itself while baking.
I can't comment on Hamelman (wish I could afford his book) but my French recipes all call for more than ten minutes at the butter stage (usually 15 min). By hand, this is 25-30 min of constant beating. You get very painful blisters, I recall. Either way, you need to get to the stage where the dough is smooth, almost silky. It takes a loooong time. The final dough can be quite slack, that's okay. Many people stop their machines too soon. It's understandable given the length of time. An underdeveloped dough will cave in because not enough gluten was developed.
It is very hard to shape slack brioche dough without chilling it for many hours. Cold fermentation for eight to twelve hours gives you a stiff dough you can de-gas and handle easily even if it started out very wet. That's because chilling it stiffens the vast amount of butter you added.
I suspect you are perhaps mistaken to think the problem is about cooling after baking. From the photos it looks like the damage was done much earlier. You've got a tunnel in the loaf - typically this happens in loaf tins because of over-proofing or a shaping mishap. You have to watch the final stage of brioche proofing like a hawk. It has a very light cell structure so it's easy to let it go too far. But the truth is there are many factors which could have combined to create this: mis-shaping, not covering the dough during an over-long rise, too much yeast, under-mixing, and so on. Obviously, you've stuck to the recipe so that rules out a lot of things. It's more likely to be technique and timing. Both come with practice. Hope this helps.
That is good insight. The tunnel I know for sure is a problem with my shaping. Even the basic loaf shape I sometimes mess up, and I also suspect I let it over proof.
The dough is sitting in a refrigerator for about 12-14 hours after mixing to become very cold and is kept in a plastic bin with a lid. It shows no sign of having a skin form or drying out when removed from the refrigerator.
I am mixing in a 20 qt spiral mixer and after all that time mixing, almost 20 minutes for a full mix, the dough shows excellent signs of extensibility. Stretching incredibly far. The curious thing is that it does not seem to be collapsing down necessarily, after baking, but rather just caving in on the sides and bottom. This is what made me think I might have over mixed. With 50% butter however, is it possible to mix to much? That much butter I think would keep the dough soft even with a loooong mix cycle.
I think my next round I will try both mixing for a longer period of time and also not removing the loaves from the pans immediately after baking. Also, really watching the proof.
any other tips for solid brioche loaf are quite welcome. really trying to nail this.
p+
Try baking until internal temperature of 190F.
I know this sounds obvious, but I didn't read in earlier posts. I make my brioche in a Hobart, and best until it passes windowpane test. Chilling makes it easier to handle. Your loaf looks nice, try adding a tad more yeast. I do around three percent yeast , using a version from this site called lazy man's brioche, it is very good formula...
dle A little more yeast might help with dough line. Also I prefer high gluten flour, I buy Trump's they have an excellent product.
Hope this helps! I used this recipe for the past two years and it has never failed me.
Pea... I do it the easy way in my KitchenAid mixer.
This link has it spelled out in detail. https://app.box.com/s/2xshb2vo5g0hnrmntkvd29fga65ezfw4
The bottom half of the dough was underdone. It needs more time in the oven, but I suppose more time in the oven is going to make the top too brown. Cover the top with foil to prevent further browning. Or you can remove the loaf and turn it upside down on the loaf pan, but I'm afraid doing that might cause dents on the top surface.
Or maybe try another loaf shape. I've seen a loaf where it consisted of six balls of dough sitting inside the loaf pan. The dough occupies bottom half of the pan. I wonder if there is a reason for the balls of dough in the loaf pan. Is it for aesthetics?