Brioche Nanterre
Sep 21st, 2008 by SteveB
Cooler evenings, lengthening shadows and the slightest hint of crimson on the maple trees can mean only one thing… autumn in New England is rapidly approaching! While some here may view the onset of autumn with trepidation, being the harbinger of the New England winter which can oftentimes be quite brutal, to me autumn is a season of anticipation. The cooler weather now makes it an ideal time to delve into one of my favorite types of baked goods… Viennoiserie. Viennoiserie is that class of leavened baked goods that is sweetened with sugar and enriched by butter and eggs. Included in this category are croissants, danish and brioche.
Brioche is known for its richness, and can be found with a butter content ranging from 20% (baker’s percentage) all the way up to 80% and higher! The formula used here has a butter content of 50% and is an adaptation of the one described in Hamelman’s Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes. However, before attempting this formula, one word of caution is in order… proceed only if you are looking for an excuse to replace your home stand mixer. The dough, before butter incorporation, is so tight that hand mixing is out of the question. Even at speed 2, my stand mixer labored, got quite hot and almost began to smoke under the strain. However, once the butter was incorporated and the dough was allowed to mix further for quite some time, a beautifully soft and satiny dough was obtained.
Final Dough
- 680 g Heartland Mill All-Purpose Flour
- 65 g Water
- 340 g Eggs (6 Large Eggs)
- 15 g Salt
- 80 g Sugar
- 1½ Tsp. Instant Yeast
- 340 g Butter (3 Sticks)
Into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a spiral dough hook is added the flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Into a separate bowl is added the water and eggs, both coming directly from the refrigerator, and this mixture is whisked just to combine. With the mixer running on speed 2, the egg and water mixture is added to the mixer bowl and all the ingredients are allowed to combine. Once a tight dough is formed, the mixer is set to speed 3 (warning: this will probably void your mixer’s warranty) and it is allowed to continue mixing to fully develop the gluten, approximately 10-15 minutes. While this mixing is ongoing, a rolling pin is used to pound the butter, which has just been removed from the refrigerator, to soften it while still keeping it cold. The butter is then cut into small pieces and slowly added to the dough after the gluten has been fully developed, still mixing on speed 3. After mixing for approximately 20 minutes, the butter becomes fully incorporated and the dough becomes soft and satiny, with the ability to be stretched into a thin windowpane.
The dough is then covered with plastic wrap and allowed to ferment for 1 hour at room temperature (~72ºF). After this time, the dough is given a turn (see the video here), placed back into the mixer bowl, covered with plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator overnight. One or two times during its refrigeration, the dough should be gently degassed.
The next morning, grease three 8½”x4½” bread pans. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and divide into 18 pieces, each 80 g. Shape each piece into a tight ball and place in the bread pans as shown below:
The dough is then covered with plastic wrap and allowed to proof for 3 hours at 74ºF. After this time, the dough has risen so that it almost fills the bread pan:
The surface of the dough balls is then brushed with egg wash and the loaves are baked in a 375ºF oven under steam for 15 minutes, after which time the steam cover is removed, the temperature is reduced to 350ºF and the loaves are allowed to bake a further 25 minutes, to a deep mahogany color. The loaves are then immediately removed from their pans and allowed to cool. The resulting brioche has a light, almost feathery crumb:
[qt:http://www.breadcetera.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/Brioche015.MOV 500 375]
I was sure Monday was going to bring something scrumptious and creative from your kitchen! What a beautiful loaf. I have done two N. American recipes for brioche, one that I found much too buttery and soft and another that was wonderful. Over here there are a million recipes. I can’t wait to see your croissants! You ARE going to do your whole list, right? 🙂
Jane
I’m a great fan of both autumn and spring.
Oh, magnifique! No time for a picnic here, and the weather is quite cold near Paris, but I could bake your brioche for a good “goÁ»ter” (sort of a French 5 o’clock tea, except we might not drink tea then but hot chocolate). Mmmmm! Thanks for the “gourmandise”!
Jane, your faith in my kitchen is truly appreciated. Now I’ll have to work doubly hard to make sure that that faith is never misplaced!
I’ve always loved the flavor and texture of brioche. This past weekend, we used some brioche slices to make French toast for Sunday breakfast. Is French toast really a French dish or do we here in the U.S. just call it that to make it sound more sophisticated? 🙂
The Viennoiserie list will definitely be completed!
Flo, thank you for the wonderful compliment. I love the idea of a goÁ»ter, especially with the colder weather on the way, and might just start that tradition here!
By the way, if you look at the photo of the picnic basket, you’ll notice that the label of the wine bottle is intentionally obscured. I’m terrible at choosing the right wine for the food being eaten so this way, I won’t have to answer to any of the wine connoisseurs out there! It is, though, a French wine. 🙂
Steve,
It’s called “pain perdu”. The French don’t like to waste, especially those who lived through the war. Old bread was processed in different ways, like bread pudding and French toast. Did it originate in France? Maybe.
I want to see your croissants/pains au chocolat next! 🙂
Jane
Hi Steve!
I would know if I can do this reciepe with sourdough or another natural starter (without using dry yeast). It looks grate!
Thank you.
MÁ²nica.
Hi MÁ²nica,
Thanks! Although I have not tried it, I would think that a natural starter could be used with this recipe. After all, some traditional Italian sweet bread recipes, such as those for panettone and pan d’oro, typically use a natural starter as an ingredient. Of course, if using a natural starter for this brioche recipe, it would have to be modified to take into account the lower activity of the starter compared to baker’s yeast.
thank you for your response. I’m going to try it, I’ll explain you the results. But I have allways the same doubt, the correspondance between natural starters and baker’s yeast. For exemple, when I make “rustic” bread I use 2 cups of flour for 2 cups of natural starter, with this everything is ok, but with sweet breads it doesn’t work exactly. Do you know if there is any way to calculate this?
MÁ²nica, my suggestion would be to first look at an established sweet dough recipe that use a natural starter and use that as a basis. I have a recipe for panettone that builds the dough in 2 stages, the first stage using about 25% (baker’s percentage) starter. The starter being used here is a fairly dry one at about 50% hydration and the fermentation time for the dough is fairly long, about 12 hours at 72ºF. Please note that the percentages above are based on weight, not volume.
Perhaps this might be a good place to start. Developing new recipes requires a bit of trial and error, so don’t get discouraged if it takes a few attempts to get it right! We all look forward to hearing of your results.
This texture is exactly what I’m looking for, when I make a brioche….Just perfect…..I’m in a hurry to get back all my stuff, and to settle in my new kitchen, then, I could try your recipe. It’s a shame to waste pieces of wonderfull brioche, after spending such a long time in your kitchen, but in the same time I like so much your videos…. 😉
CÁ©cile, you can be sure none of the brioche was wasted. As soon as the camera stopped, I had those pieces of brioche in my mouth! 🙂
Lovely brioche and great windowpane photo! What does Nanterre refer to?
Hi Susan,
I can’t believe that in the entire post, I never explained the reference to “Nanterre” in the name! Thanks for the question.
Nanterre refers to the form of the brioche in which the dough is panned as individual dough balls which then fuse together during proofing and baking. It is named after the town of Nanterre, France.
Nice brioche Steve.
MÁ²nica,
For what it’s worth. I have a recipe for natural yeast brioche here, from a few months back.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7433/brioche-au-levain-recipe
Hope that helps.
Foolishpoolish, thanks for the link.
Hello Steve! I’ve tried to make the Brioche whith natural starter, the results are amazing. Tomorrow I’ll post it on the blog.
Thank you so much for your help.
And thank you Foolishpoolish too!
MÁ²nica, it’s great that your brioche with natural starter turned out so well! I’m looking forward to seeing the results on your blog.
Steve, Nice brioche! I¨m fan your blog. Your blog is lovely and very creative. Sorry for my english.
Carmen, thank you so much for your compliments! I loved the little brioche Á tÁªte on your blog. Your English is much better than my Spanish.
Been reading for a while now, very happy with the formulae and techniques. Ciabatta and focaccia were excellent, rye came out great, and I made the brioche last night. Didn’t have any loaf pans though, but since your recipe lends itself nicely to 2/3-ing, I did that and made a 12-ball version in a 10-inch springform pan.
Is it positively imposible to mix the dough by hand? I mean, I would really love to give it a try, but being absolutely true, I would not like to try my stand mixer, for it is not that ‘powerful’. I have mixed let’s say ‘difficult’ doughs, such as Pan de Muerto or Rosca de Reyes, which have to be kneaded with as much vigour as the stiffest of doughs for well about fourty-five to fifty minutes. This is why I ask. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this, for I loved the looks of the finished bread and would love to bake this for my sweetie this season.
Hi Patricia,
I hesistate to label anything “positively impossible” unless, of course, it violates the laws of physics. 🙂
If you have the experience and stamina to hand mix very stiff doughs, I would say give it a go. The key is to be able to mix to a “windowpane” after the addition of the butter.
Good luck and let us know how things work out!
Thank you very much for your observations. I have a tendency for substitutions, either in the ingredients field or in the technical one, and sometimes I just keep wondering ‘what if I had followed the recipe the way I found it?’ So I decided to ask in this very particular subject, so that I would not be wondering about the results.
I will try to post more pictures in my blog(unfortunately, it is not entirely devoted to recipes, but to let’s say, social comments on food), and of course I will let you know how it went, with pictures and all.
Again, thanks for your observations.
Oh, and by the way, it is almost Rosca de Reyes season! I will try to document the process, which I did not do with the Pan de Muerto, from beginning to end.
Patricia, I look forward to seeing how your brioche turns out. In my experience, baking is necessarily a more precise undertaking than cooking. I therefore try to follow directions exactly when using a baking formula for the first time, then make any necessary adjustments for subsequent bakes based upon my results.
I promise I will follow exactly your recipe and directions. They are very precise, I must say, and the pictures are excellent. 🙂
And thanks for your comment, I really would not like my baked goods to turn into a disaster just because I simply adore fooling around with the ingredients or techniques in recipes tried for the first time-mea culpa-. I really appreciate the comments from people with -evidently- more experience than me.
hum!! elle est bien belle cette brioche Nanterre…
Cachou66, merci pour le compliment.
Just one last question about the brioche: in the doughs I have mixed, such as Pan de Muerto and Rosca de Reyes, which, by the way, are sort of common here, they part from the principle of the bizcocho dough, that is, to mix all the ingredients together, flour, yeast, any liquid involved, such as orange blossom and anise water and /or milk, butter and eggs together, with the percenteage of fat going as high as 50% or more, not to speak of 10 eggs for 600 grs. of flour. Maybe this is the reason why they have to be kneaded for so long, but in the end, you finish with a very silky dough that does not stick to your hands or the working surface, goes perfectly through the ‘windowpane’ test, and you end up with a bread with a very light crumb-I usually bulk ferment in cold, and this is how my breads end up-. I was just wondering if the same method would work here, that is, to mix everything together and knead, knead, knead. Thank you very much for your observations.
Patricia, the idea behind delayed fat incorporation is to enable gluten development relatively quickly, thus minimizing overoxidation of the dough. As you may know, fat tends to coat the gluten strands and if the fat is added at the beginning of mixing, it will impede gluten development. That’s not to say that gluten development will not occur, it will just take a much longer time. If you find that the longer mix time does not affect the quality of your final product, then by all means add the fat at the beginning.
Hi Steve,
I just discovered your fascinating and informative site. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have been making bread and viennoiserie as a hobby for over 20 years and recently have been trying to look in depth into the making of Brioches and Croissants. The recipes that I have found for Brioche Nanterre all call for the top to be slit to allow the dough to rise more. Have you tried it?
Also there is a French made cylindrical croissant cutter that cuts elongated triangles with a slit at the base and makes the job much easier.
Congratulations on a great site!
Hi Don,
Thank you for the kind words.
Interestingly, I’ve never seen a Brioche Nanterre recipe that calls for scoring the top of the loaf. I’ll have to try it next time.
I am aware of the croissant cutter you described. Thanks for mentioning it. The cutter is particularly useful when croissants are made in large volume. Since this blog is specifically geared towards the home baker, I try to keep the amount of specialized equipment to a minimum.
ooh steve
u make me feel hungry 🙂
thanx for this lovely recipes …
Yaman, I appreciate your compliments.
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Hi Steve,
I came across to your site while looking for a Brioche recipe. Your loaf is so far one of the prettiest looking. I wish I had to taste it. Therefore, I decided to make it following your recipe. While reading the ingredients I thought with 340gr eggs to 680 g Flour + some water the dough should be pliable as the eggs consists lot’s of water, but decided to give it a try as my SMix is heavy duty guy. And yes, the dough was very wet, it could be easily smeared on the SM walls. …Anyways, I did evth as you said, now it’s rising. Do you think I did something wrong? Why my dough was not tight as yours?
Thank you,
Ema
Ema, even if the eggs were treated as all water for the purpose of the dough hydration calculation (which they are obviously not), the dough’s hydration would still come out in the 50% range, a firm dough by any standard. My suggestions would be to first double check the weights of the ingredients you are using and second, to be sure that the flour you are using has a protein content similar to the flour that I used (11.3% protein). In any event, the amount of water added to the dough should always be adjusted by the baker to give a dough with the described characteristics.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for the info. I used King Arthur All Purpose Flour, I can’t remember the protein %. Perhaps that was the problem in my dough. Otherwise I followed carefully your recipe. Anyways it came out fine, not exactly like yours in your basket, but almost there, the most important – it was very tasty. The crumb was tender and had even nice porous. The crust was dark and shiny , though had few tiny bumps from air pockets. In overall, I am surprised and pleased with the outcome. I will adjust the water next time as you recommend, then I might get better look.
I’ve been afraid of making or buying Brioche knowing how much butter was used, but not anymore thanks to you.
Thank you again for your recipe.
Ema
Hey I was wondering how you would modify this recipe if you were to do it by hand. Would you just need two people to do this? I don’t own a dough hook/mixer so if i was to make this bread I’d need to do it by hand
Hi Matt,
If you are attempting to mix this dough by hand, you might try adding a small amount of the softened butter (perhaps around 40 g) to the initial mix. This should soften the dough up a bit to permit hand kneading without impeding gluten development. Once the gluten is sufficiently developed, the remaining butter can then be incorporated.
Hello,
I’ve been struggling to make pain au levain and the like for literally years. I’m still not there but this lovely site has helped me get closer and closer to the hallowed open crumb structure that I so desire. Right now I have a beautiful looking vanilla brioche rising in the oven based on the above recipe.
Thanks for this killer blog.
Here is my version of your recipe for brioche…
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10200299568345623&set=a.2433272544967.134027.1046279765&type=1&theater
Thanx!
Hello!
I am planning to do this by hand since I don’t have a stand mixer. So I’m going to try following your advice to add roughly 40g butter to the initial dough and knead. But when doing this initial kneading for full gluten development, should I do the slap/fold bertinet technique or would that be inefficient considering the “tightness” of the dough? I am very new to bread making!
After full gluten development, wow should I knead in the remaining butter/ Would I just mix or use a certain kneading technique?
Thank you!
Kevin B.
Hi Kevin,
The mixing technique to be used should be determined by the firmness of the dough. Although I’ve never attempted adding a small amount of butter to the initial mix, I would imagine that the dough will still be rather firm. In this case, use the traditional ‘knead with the heel of your hand’ technique. Once all the butter has been added and the dough has loosened up, the ‘slap and fold’ technique can be used.
Thank you so much! I will try it out on Saturday or Sunday and will let you know how it turned out!
Just one more thing-
For the process of adding the rest of the butter to the fully developed dough, should I add it in similar to the “frissage” technique for buttery tart/pie crusts or in a slapping/folding fashion like in this video?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGYj1KpADM8
I promise it’s not rick-roll. 😛
Kevin
Hello Steve,
Well what an experience that was.. LOL.
I just completed the entire kneading process and its fermenting for the first time. I used vermont creamery butter and King arthur flour. I stretched and folded for a good…30-35 minutes to get full development (or so I think!). My right hand became so tired from the stretching that I had to become ambidextrous for my hands to switch roles. I think the stamina from my young age (18) allowed for hand kneading- otherwise, if I were middle aged, I think I would’ve had a heart attack (no offense, lol). Then I incorporated the cold butter portion by portion by stretching and folding it into the dough. That took about 15 minutes. That was the most fun part- squishy, white, soft, buttery :).
The next part was the most chaotic. Slapping and folding the satiny dough…it became so violent that the dough almost fell to the ground, tiny particles of dough flew all over the carpet and onto my glasses, and I almost knocked my sister out. For the thin windowpane to form, it took nearly 45 minutes…holy crap! Unfortunately, due to working the dough for so long, some of the butter began to melt out- even with my specific butter’s high melting point. I plunged my hands into icy water to try to amend the situation, but I should’ve done this earlier and more often.
I know how it affects the dough’s texture, but I don’t think too much melted out. There wasn’t a pool of butter, though it it was definitely a little greasy.
Even doing the windowpane test was a little challenging for me, because it was the first time I’ve ever done it. The first few times I did it on this dough, it ripped way too easily; I then realized that I was pulling the dough rather then delicately stretching it and then firmly holding it. So the 5th/6th time around of testing it, it seemed to work out.
We will see how it turns out! I will let you know the results tomorrow.
KB
The Brioche was delicious! I was worried it would be cake light but it had nearly the same texture as yours was- “bread like”, feathery, light! The crumb was beautiful. Though it didn’t rise as much as I hoped it would. I think I also overcooked it by about 1-2 minutes. It tasted like a croissaint, except fluffier.
Maybe it didn’t rise as much because I forgot to cover the dough itself during refrigeration (covered the bowl, not the dough) for the first 30-40 minutes. Afterwards I realized a skin was forming and I had to moisten plastic wrap and put it on the brioche. Next time I’ll also proof and refrigerate it longer.
Thanks for the recipe.
This really was the peecrft french toast! I made a whole loaf and we ate it on saturday and sunday. I used half of the vanilla and substituted almond extract for the rest (my wife loves almond flavor) and it worked great. We debated which worked better, the pieces that followed the soaking directions, and the ones I forgot about and let soak longer. The longer soaked ones were more flavorful and moister, but didn’t caramelize as well. Either works based on your preference, I suppose.