Brioche and a brioche Challah

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash

The Austrians gave the French Brioche with the arrival of Marie Antoinette in Paris in 1770. Since then, this sweetened and enriched dough has morphed into everything from croissants, to cinnamon rolls, to braids of Challah. Even such mundane things as King's Hawaiian bread owe their existence to brioche dough.

Brioche

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup  softened butter
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
480 grams all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let it sit for about 5 minutes. Add sugar, butter, salt, eggs and mix together at low speed until the sugar’s dissolved. Add the flour a cup at a time and mix until the dough comes together. 
2. Set dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough has a uniform consistency. That will take around five or six minutes.
3. Place dough into an oiled bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size. Now you’re ready to put your brioche to work.
4. Form the dough into 12, equal-sized balls and bake in a lightly greased hamburger bun pan to make hamburger rolls.
5. Or, you can form 36, equal-sized balls and place three balls each into every well of a muffin pan to make cloverleaf rolls.
6. Place the risen dough in an 8” inch bread pan for a single loaf.
7. Divide the dough into three strands and braid the strands for Challah.