Brioche

To make a very long story short - my life has been a turned upside down in the last couple of months.  Due to a very unfortunate turn of events, (and an uncooperative septic system) I've had to adhere to some extreme water restrictions at home. 

We're taking super quick showers and my dishwasher and my washing machine have been rendered unusable.  I'm getting used to hauling all of our dirty clothes to the laundromat but I don't think I'll ever get used to hand washing all my dishes.  Needless to say, we've used more paper plates and cups in the last couple of weeks than we've used in the entire 12 years that we've lived in this house.  

All of these events have given me a newfound appreciation my water consuming appliances and I've also developed a whole new level of appreciation for any recipe that doesn't create a stack of dirty dishes for me to wash.  I find myself judging new recipes now by the amount of dishes that I will have to wash when I'm finished.  Recipes that don't require me to wash my food processor or my standing mixer bowls are the most appealing right now.  

This recipe for brioche might have sat in my recipe que for quite a while if it had not been for the fact that it uses a very limited number of bowls and utensils.  I'm certainly not advocating my recipe selection technique, but in this case - it worked out for the best.  I absolutely love this hand kneaded version of the french pastry bread, brioche. I'm sure that you will love it too - and the fact that there are very few dishes to wash when you're done. 

Brioche
3 1/4 cups bread flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
7 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
16 Tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
​

Whisk together flour, yeast and salt. 

Whisk together 6 eggs, water and sugar. 

Whisk in melted butter. 

Add egg mixture to flour mixture.  Stir with wooden spoon. 

Cover with plastic wrap and let stand 10 minutes. 

Knead dough 8 times. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes. 

Repeat kneading and rising - 3 more times.  After 4th set of kneading, cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate 16 hours - 2 days. 

Remove dough from frig.  Transfer to a floured counter.  Divide into 4 pieces. 

Pat each dough into a 4" disk. 

Fold edges towards center until ball forms.

Flip dough over.  Without applying pressure, move hand to form a smooth ball. 

Cover balls with plastic wrap and let rest for 5 minutes. 

Pat dough balls into 4" disks. Repeat rounding step.

Place 2 balls, seam side down, into two greased 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pans. 

Cover loaves with plastic wrap and let rise 1 1/2 -2 hours. 

Beat remaining egg with salt and brush over loaves. 

Heat baking stone in 350 oven.  Place pans on heated stone and bake 35-45 minutes. 

Let cool on rack 2 hours before slicing. 

Serve. 

This bread was really, really good.  The recipe is written for 2 loaves but I ended up making one loaf of bread, 6 round rolls and 2 lobster rolls instead. 

I bought a couple of lobster tails at the grocery store that were just far to precious to serve on plain old hot dogs buns.  It's lobster people!  This brioche bread was the PERFECT bread for lobster rolls.  ​

I also made some spectacular french toast out of this brioche bread.  I didn't snap any pictures of it but trust me - it was epic.  

​Ciao!

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