poor man's brioche

Many of us make bread at home, or we are used to making different pastry recipes. But few of us have tried to prepare our own brioches. Miriam, food blogger for El Invitado de Invierno and an expert in everything related to bread, proposes today to prepare it. On this occasion, he has used the ideal ceramic mold for brioche by Emile Henry . Here he tells you how to do it.

Maybe you shouldn't think that brioche is what they sell you in most stores, no, no, no. The brioche is a wonderful bun with tons of eggs and butter, which if made with care and correctness smells nourishing, and tastes fantastic. And it doesn't need to be covered in gooey frosting or anything like that to look the way it should. A few brushstrokes of egg to make it shine, maybe some granulated sugar and you're done.

This poor man's brioche comes from the fact that depending on the amount of eggs and butter with which the base is enriched, the bun will cost us more or less money. And it will cost us more or less to knead it too, because the more fat the dough has, the less manageable it is. Therefore this is the easiest brioche we can make; the recipe comes from Peter Reinhart's book The Baker's Apprentice.

Ingredients

For the preference:

• 65 g bread flour
• 5 g dry baker's yeast (or 15 g fresh yeast)
• 120 ml of whole milk

For the final dough:

• preference
• 3 large eggs (about 190-200 g)
• 30g of sugar
• 10g of salt
• 400-420 g of bread flour
• 120 g softened butter
• 1 egg to paint.

Elaboration

1. We start by preparing the preferment. Mix all the ingredients, cover and let it ferment. After a while it will be raised and bubbly (the time for you to see it ready will depend a lot on the temperature of the kitchen and the state of the yeast, but with that amount of yeast it can take about an hour or so).
2. When the preferment is ready, add the eggs, sugar and salt, and mix well. Then add the flour (starting with 400 g) and mix well. We begin to knead, by hand or with a robot or bread maker ; We will obtain a rather hard dough, but don't be afraid because later when adding the butter it thins a lot. If the dough is too sticky we will add some more flour.
3. Knead for a minute and let the dough rest, always covered, for about 10 minutes. We repeat the short kneading and another equal rest. Then we begin to add the softened butter (eye, neither melted nor ointment) in pieces, until the dough has absorbed it all.
4. From here we knead in periods of 1-2 minutes, with breaks of 10-15 minutes between them, as many times as necessary to obtain a smooth and elastic dough, at least four times. Shape the dough into a ball, transfer it to an oiled bowl, cover it and let it double in volume.
5. When it has folded, we transfer it to the counter, squeeze it well by hand to remove the bubbles and divide it into two equal portions. We mold the portions according to the mold that we are going to use; We can mold it in the shape of a brioche à tête like the one in the photos (although this time the tête or little head has been a bit scattered), for which we make a ball with 2/3 of the dough, which we will put in the mold . With the remaining third we make the small ball, which we will mold in the shape of a teardrop. To join both portions of dough, we sink a finger into the large ball, making a hole in the center where we will introduce the spout of the teardrop, almost until it touches the bottom of the mold. Again we let the dough ferment; in this second fermentation it must almost triple its volume.
6. When the dough is well risen, brush with beaten egg and put the molds in a preheated oven at 210° (no air) with lower heat and cook the brioches for 20 minutes. After that time they will have risen and we lower the temperature to 180°; cook another 15 minutes. If they brown excessively, we can cover them with aluminum foil.
7. When they are done we take them out and when the molds can be handled we unmold them and put them to cool on a rack.