I have posted about brioche before, but I've found a new recipe for the most tender and delicious bread you'll ever eat. It is more than worth your time. The recipe is the one the 2005 US Bread Team used in the 2005 Bread World Cup (I got a copy because I'm a member of the Bread Bakers Guild of America). They used this dough as a base for a strawberry danish-like confection, but I chose it because I needed a nice loaf to put on the brunch buffet at work.

This brioche is a little different from others I've come across, in that it uses a short dough along with the butter to keep the gluten nice and undeveloped. While the short dough does make the flour content a little higher, it also ups the butter ratio. The sugar content is raised as well, but is still only about 8% from the dough.

This design is easy to do, just divide your dough into four pieces, roll each one into a ball, and place them in the loaf pan. As the dough rises, it smooshes together and bakes up just as you see in the picture above. Check out the gallery below for some more images. The recipe is after the jump.



This makes four loaves, 16-17 ounces each,

Short dough
2.5oz sugar
5oz unsalted butter
1 lg egg
7.5oz all purpose flour

Dough
27 oz bread flour
2.8oz water
.35oz instant yeast
14oz eggs
2.4oz sugar
.5oz salt
13.25 oz unsalted butter
all of the short dough

Mix all ingredients of the short dough together and set aside, along with the 13.25oz of butter. Mix all of the dough ingredients together except the butter and short dough. Mix until the dough is about halfway developed. Start adding the butter and short dough a little at a time, until it is all incorporated and the dough is fully developed. Place the dough into a container and cover.

Allow the dough to bulk ferment for two hours. Turn the dough out and measure it into 16oz pieces, dividing the remaining dough among the four loaves. Divide each loaf into four pieces, round into a ball, and place the four balls into a greased loaf pan. Cover the loaf pans with plastic and allow to proof for 1.5 to 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Bake the brioche for 20 minutes, turn and bake for 10-15 minutes more (or longer if needed). It should be a deep golden brown. I usually like to turn the bread out of the loaf pans immediately, but in this case you should let the bread cool for about ten minutes. The loaves will tend to pull apart if the protein hasn't set yet.