Rachel
- Feb 19, 2018
- 3 min read

Brioche Bread and rolls

Updated: Dec 8, 2020

Buttery, warm, and soft brioche bread. The main difference between brioche and a basic white loaf is the large amount of butter used. The butter is incorporated after the main ingredients are mixed, making an extremely soft, elastic dough that is a little tricky to work with but turns out delicious after baking.

The recipe can also be used to make cinnamon rolls, caramel rolls, and babka.

Amazing bread that is best eaten fresh, or if older, as french toast.

The recipe is here and pictures of the brioche making process are below.

Ingredients:

Dough:

3 and 1/2 cups of AP flour
3/4 cup of warm milk
1 tsp. sugar
2 and 1/4 tsp. yeast
2 eggs (room temperature)
2 egg yolks (room temperature)
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup of soft butter (A stick and a half)

Egg wash:

1 tsp vanilla extract ( optional)
Egg yolk
1-2 tbsp. milk

Sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

Directions:

Mix warm milk with yeast and 1 tsp. sugar. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl add flour, ¼ cup sugar, salt, and the eggs. When the yeast mixture is bubbly and active, add it to the mixture as well.
Use a dough hook to mix the dough on low speed until it becomes somewhat soft and sticky and doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl (looks like dough, doesn’t have to have perfectly smooth texture). This may take some time and you may have to knead by hand a little to get it to become soft.
With the mixer on low speed (2), slowly add the butter (about 2 tablespoons every 30 seconds or so. You may need to knead the dough a little by hand to help incorporate it after each addition.
Keep mixing until butter is incorporated and dough doesn’t stick to sides of bowl. This can take 8-10 minutes total. The dough should be smooth and soft and fall of the dough hook. It will be greasy due to all the butter. You can check to see if the dough passes the windowpane test.
Take the dough out and shape into a ball. Place in a greased bowl. Place plastic wrap over the top, cover with kitchen towel, and place in warm place (microwave works) for 2 hours.
After the 1st rise, take the dough out and cut 1/3 of it off. Roll and shape it into desired shape (recipe makes 1 loaf and 6 buns). The 2/3 segment becomes a loaf and the 1/3 becomes 6 buns. You can do a braid loaf and swirl buns if you like.
Before shaping you can also add in raisins, chocolate chips, or other things you want to bake into it.
Once shaped, place in/on greased pan. Use the egg wash and brush it over the top of the loaf and buns. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let rise 1 hour.
15 minutes before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 350*F. Use the egg wash on the bread and buns before baking and sprinkle sugar on the top if desired.
Bake the buns for 15-17 minutes. Bake the loaf for about 25 minutes.
Let cool about 10 minutes before removing loaf from pan but you can remove buns from pan sooner to stop the cooking process.
Can store at room temperature up to three days, but longer if kept in refrigerator or freezer
Makes: 1 loaf and 6 buns.

Warm milk, sugar and yeast before activation.

Warm milk, sugar and yeast after activation.

After adding the flour, eggs, salt, and sugar to the yeast mixture.

After mixing everything together. It forms a soft sticky dough, so now we can start adding the butter.

1/3 of the way through mixing the soft butter into the dough. I had to take the dough off the hook a couple times because the butter wasn't distributing at first.