Brioche Bread with Freshly Milled Flour
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup warm milk
- 2 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 6 tablespoons cane sugar or sucanat sugar
- 5 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cold butter (8.8 ounces or 2 sticks + 2 tablespoons)
- 3 ½ - 4 cups (540 grams) of freshly milled flour (cooled)
Instructions
Activating the Yeast
- In a bowl or your mixer, add the warm milk, sugar, yeast, and ½ cup of flour. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
Making the Dough
- Once yeast has proofed, add the 5 eggs and egg yolk. Mix together.Next, add the vanilla, salt, and about 2 more cups (285 grams) of flour. Do not add the remaining flour yet! Mix these together until you have a very sticky, shaggy dough.Knead/mix this together for 3 minutes, and let it rest.Take your butter out of the fridge and cut it into very small cubes. Working in small batches, add the butter cubes to the mixer. Mix each batch for 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, to get everything incorporated.Continue adding more and more butter, mixing for a minute, and scraping down the sides, until all the butter is added and incorporated.Once the butter is all mixed in, start adding in your remaining flour. Only do about ¼ cup (30 grams) at a time, until your dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl and becoming easier to work with. Err on the side of not enough flour, rather than too much flour. You don’t want this bread to be dry! If you feel like there might not be enough flour, continue mixing for 10-15 minutes to see if it becomes smooth and shiny, and easier to work with. If not, you may need to add more flour.This dough will need to be kneaded for 10-15 minutes.
First Rise
- Oil a bowl, roll your dough ball into the oil, and cover with plastic wrap or a moist tea towel.Let the dough rise until doubled. This usually takes about one hour.
Shaping the Dough
- For brioche, the main options for shaping it are to braid it and put it in a loaf pan, or form small balls of dough (like rolls) and squish them inside a loaf pan. This recipe will fill a large 9 x 5 loaf pan, either way you shape it.Prepare the loaf pan by spraying with non-stick spray or coating in oil.Dump your dough onto a slightly wet, oiled, or floured surface. If braiding, divide the dough into thirds, and flatten each out into a rectangle. Roll each piece into a log or snake shape, about an inch and a half thick. The most important thing is to get them the same size. Pinch the top ends of each strip together at the top and begin braiding the dough until you get to the end. When you get to the end, pinch and seam them together.
Second Rise
- Place the braided dough into your loaf pan, cover and let rise again, until almost doubled.
Baking Instructions
- When almost done rising, preheat the oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. If desired, make an egg wash to brush over the top, using egg yolk and water. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Let the brioche sit in the pan for 5 minutes, before removing it. Let cool completely before slicing into the bread - if you can! A bake day well done!
Notes
Know Before You Bake
The most important thing about making brioche is to remember you need cool ingredients. If your freshly milled flour is warm at all, go stick it in the freezer and let it cool down. Keep your butter cool in the fridge, and remove just before chopping it up into cubes. The only thing we are going to warm is your milk, just so we can activate the yeast. Other than that, cool is the name of the brioche game! One other thing - this recipe just works better in an electric mixer, since we will be mixing it A LOT!