High hopes - Back to Basics - making brioche bread

Art Culinaire, Spring, 2002

Perhaps the perfect comfort food is fresh bread, warm and pliable, filled with airy pockets and yeasty incense, and as satisfying to make as it is to consume. Its greatest asset is its diversity. Taking on the customs of the baker and the economics of the times, the personalities of bread are dictated largely by their makers. Once a product made for the masses, bread evolved during the Middle Ages into a regional specialty. As a result, many different classes of bread were born including "soft" or "Queen's" bread, a luxurious loaf fortified with milk and egg yolks. In 1404 the word brioche first appeared in print. It is argued by some that this enriched bread was created in Brie, France, and that the original recipe included the addition of Brie cheese. However, contemporaries now subscribe to the notion that the term brioche is a derivative of the Norman word for pound, broyer. Not surprisingly, it is the Norman regions of Gournay and Gisors that are reputed for their superlative brioches. Perhaps this has less to do with the Normans' baking skills and more to do with their superior butter-the secret ingredient to any great brioche.

Regardless of its origin, brioche-based dough is a universal confection. Panettone, pandoro, stollen, fouaces, pompes, pastis, koeckbotteram, cramiques, and couques; no matter the language, the result is the same: cake-like breads made for holidays and yearly celebrations. Biagio Settepani, Owner of Bruno Bakery in Brooklyn, believes Italian pandoro is related to brioche. The Italian confection relies on a sourdough starter referred to as la madre, which was at one time the only leavener available in Italy (Glezer 161). The starter is developed in a time-consuming process during which subsequent additions of sugar and egg create a leisurely fermentation. The final result is a strong mass with a rather high sugar content, enhancing the overall sweetness of the bread. Settepani's pandoro takes thirty-three hours to make from start to finish. The recipe calls for the preparation of three separate doughs. The first is a firm starter of lukewarm water and high-gluten flour. The second dough is a mixture of the fir m starter, yeast, hot water, high-gluten flour, egg, and sugar. The third and final dough combines the second dough with whipped, hard cocoa butter and unsalted butter, additional high-gluten flour, salt, honey, eggs, vanilla extract, and sugar (Glezer 166). Like brioche, the prolonged resting-rising time allows flavors, especially sugars, in the dough to develop.

Like pandoro, stollen, or koeckbotteram, brioche is often referred to as a "rich yeast bread" because the dough is enriched with a generous amount of butter and eggs. The ratio of flour to butter is equal in some recipes. As a result, butter must be of the best quality and exceptionally fresh or off-flavors will permeate the entire batch. Fresh sweet butter, the highest quality of which contains as much as 85% milk fat, is responsible for producing the cake-y crumb and buttery flavor of a primo loaf. Equal care must also be taken when kneading the dough to properly incorporate each addition of egg and butter. Because the fat and moisture content is high, the dough is excessively heavy; therefore, the yeast content is also higher. Patience is required, too. Brioche should rise gradually in a cool environment to prevent the cornerstone ingredient--butter, from melting and separating from the dough. Because brioche dough is very dense and wet, it requires a rather labor intensive and time-consuming mixing proces s. However, the dough can be made in advance and frozen whole. It will require about 4-5 hours to thaw at room temperature before it can be shaped for baking (Collister and Blake 181). No doubt, as you will discover, the result is worth the wait. As with any bread, the power of the final product is in the ingredients.

bread flour

Bread flour has a high proportion of protein to starch, which makes for a lighter bread. As the baker kneads the dough, protein develops into gluten, which gives bread its rising power. Bread flour is best stored in an airtight container at 70 degrees for up to six months. Wheat bread flour should be stored in the freezer for no more than three months, as its high oil content may cause it to turn rancid quickly (Collister and Blake 21).

butter

Fresh, unsalted butter is key--not only for the quality and flavor, but for the stature of the finished product. Lining a brioche or bread mold with butter and or buttered parchment paper allows the dense dough to rise evenly during its oven time. In the recipe, the milk fat in butter enhances the tenderness, moisture, and flavor of the final product. Butter adds to the downy, mouth feel. Using unsalted butter is important as excessive salt can impede the activity of yeast. Butter also coats strands of gluten to prevent the loss of moisture to sugar and salt, thus protecting the ideal of a tender bread.

salt

The right amount of salt lends not only flavor to a baked product but it helps to strengthen the gluten, which develops during the kneading process. Stronger gluten strands means more elasticity, allowing the brioche to rise to its full potential.