Food Lust People Love: brioche

Brioche is a subtly sweet eggy yeast dough, kneaded with added butter. The addition of semi-sweet or dark mini chocolate chips elevates it to favorite status for breakfast or snack time.

Happy birthday, Sunday Supper! This week we are celebrating the second anniversary of the creation of Sunday Supper, a movement dedicated to getting folks back around the family dinner table, eating together. Along with recipes, we are sharing our favorite Sunday Supper memory from the last year. For my recipe, I decided to go back to my first Sunday Supper post and choose someone else’s recipe from that list to adapt. I first participated just over a year ago and the theme was “bucket list.” I tackled lemon soufflé. As I looked through those recipes, I realized that one of my favorite bloggers, Nancy from Gotta Get Baked, had made something that was also on my bucket list: Brioche. So yay! Another year and another challenge to scratch off the list!

My favorite Sunday Supper memory really speaks about the hearts of the men and women who form this group. It’s not even post, theme or recipe related. One night, a couple of months back, one of our British members wrote a heartfelt plea on the Sunday Supper Facebook group wall.

What followed were jokes and commiserations and virtual handholding. When the next morning rolled around, she came back to thank everyone for seeing her through. The thread ended with a comment from our wonderful leader, Isabel from Family Foodie.

And, Isabel is exactly right: That is what makes this group special.

And, now on to the brioche! I’ve given these special sweet rolls their French name because, when we lived in France, they were my daughters’ first choice of snack when we’d walk down to the local bakery of an afternoon, and that brings back another lovely memory for me. You can’t beat brioche with little chocolate chips for a great breakfast or snack!

Make sure to scroll down and see all the other celebratory recipes and favorite Sunday Supper memories we have for you today.

Ingredients
For the dough:
4 cups or 500g flour
1 packet (1/4 oz or 7g) dried yeast
2/3 cup or 155ml milk
1/3 cup or 70g sugar
1/2 cup or 110g butter, very slightly softened
2 eggs
100g mini semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

To decorate before baking:
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk
About 3 tablespoons or 30g pearl sugar

Method
Warm your milk in the microwave by zapping it for about 30-40 seconds. Sprinkle on the dried yeast and one teaspoon of the sugar. Stir gently and set aside for about 10 minutes.

In the bowl of your standing mixer, measure your flour and add in the rest of the sugar and the two eggs. Pour in the milk/yeast mixture.

Mix well and keep mixing until you have a nice homogeneous dough. This gets pretty stiff and you may need to hold the mixer down if it starts to travel. Cut your butter into chunks and add about one-third of them to the dough.

Knead, in your mixer, until the butter is fully incorporated. (You can do this by hand but it takes some muscle and time.)

Add the second third of the butter to the dough and knead until incorporated.

Add the final third of the butter and knead again until incorporated.

You should have a stretchy, silky, buttery dough.

Form a ball with the dough and leave it in the bowl. No need to grease the bowl, it's buttery enough.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place for about an hour or until it doubles in volume. (If you are living in a cold place, fill your sink with a few inches of hot water and set the covered bowl in there.)

Meanwhile, prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by lining it with stiff paper cups.

Punch down the dough and remove to a clean work surface. Pour on the mini chocolate chips. Fold and knead the dough until the chips are evenly distributed.

They look like they don't want to mix it but perseverance here is key.

Cut the dough into 12 reasonably similar pieces.

Roll them in balls and set them inside the prepared muffin cups.

Set aside for about an hour in a warm place to rise for the second time. (If you live in a cold place, you can do the hot water in the sink trick again but do be careful to put just a little water so it doesn’t come up and wet the stiff paper cups and dough when you put the muffin pan in.)

When you are about 15 minutes from the end of the second rising, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Beat your egg yolk with the tablespoon of milk. When the brioche are ready to bake, brush them lightly with the egg yolk/milk mixture and sprinkle on the pearl sugar.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the brioche are golden and sound a bit hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!

Happy 2nd Anniversary, Sunday Supper! It's been an honor and a privilege to be a part of this wonderful group. Look at all the other celebratory recipes and special memories my fellow members have shared!

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