The Bread is in the Baking

While looking for recipes for dessert last night I stumbled upon this lovely recipe. I LOVE brioche. For those of you who don't known, brioche is similar to challah but more like pastry bread.

I found this recipe on the Foodbeam blog, a blog I have been wanting to try out for a while, but their recipes are very fancy so I hadn't gotten a chance. This recipe is not real fancy, just takes a bit of time since you have to let the dough rise overnight. Which makes this recipe perfect for breakfast (although morning prep and bake will take roughly 1-2 hours).

I changed very little of this recipe: I used more flour than the recipe asked for because the dough was still very sticky after 4 cups of flour. I used 5-10 chocolate chips in each brioche instead of chocolate squares.

Chocolate Heart Brioche

makes 24 small brioches

500ml warm milk
42g fresh yeast
4-8 cups flour
200g caster sugar (regular sugar works fine too)
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
160g melted butter
24 milk or dark chocolate squares (or 1/3- 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Combine the milk, yeast and a teaspoon of the sugar in a bowl. Stir once or twice and allow rising for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, mix 4 cups of flour, remaining sugar and salt and pour the yeast mixture on top of it.
Add the eggs and melted butter and mix, first with a round knife and then with your hands – until it forms a ball.
Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes. It should be soft and not sticky. (You can knead the dough in the bowl if it is large enough)
Butter a large bowl generously. Place the dough in the buttered bowl and let rise overnight in the fridge.

The next morning, allow the dough to come to room temperature (this is not completely necessary though it will make your brioche a bit lighter.
Preheat the oven to 393°F (200°C).
Knead the dough and cut off pieces of dough to form small 90g balls and insert a chocolate square in the centre of each ball.

Fill two 12-bun muffin tin with the dough balls and let rise for 20 minutes (I put muffin cups in the tin, but it's not necessary if you grease the tins and they come out far prettier if you don't). Brush with a little egg, then bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

If the tops get too brown loosely cover with foil.

Total Time: roughly 14 hours (40 minutes to make dough, set over night and then 1-2 hours to prep and bake in the morning

The beautiful picture was taken by my dad. THANK YOU!