"The Brioche of Yesteryear" - a family recipe by Guy Channeboux INGREDIENTS (all at room temp) For around 1/3 kilos (3/4 lb.) of dough, use: 500 grams (4 cups) flour 50 grams (¼ cup) sugar 7 eggs 400 grams (7 tablespoons) butter (Plugra, avail. @ Trader Joe's) cut into pcs 12.5 grams (1 tablespoon) yeast (can moisten and mix with ~1/8 tsp sugar) 2 level teaspoons fleur de sel (good grade sea salt) 1. Place the flour in the KitchenAid mixer bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and sugar. Using the dough hook, turn the mixer onto high speed and add 4 eggs and the salt. 2. Lower the mixer to medium speed and add the remaining eggs, one at a time, waiting until one is completely incorporated before adding the next. 3. When the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, add the butter piece by piece. Continue to run the mixer until the dough again pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This will take around 20 minutes. If necessary, stop the mixer briefly and scrape down the dough with a spatula. If the mixer motor gets hot, put a baggie full of crushed ice on it. 4. Stop the mixer. Transfer the dough to a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise to double the volume (2-3 hours at an ideal room temperature of 72°F, 22°C). When doubled, punch the dough down with one strong blow. Again cover with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator for the second rising. This one should last 1 to 1¼ hours. Again punch down and re-cover the dough. 5. Store the dough in the refrigerator overnight. (At this point it can be frozen for use at a later date.) 6. The next day, form the dough into whatever molds you are planning to use. Let rise until the dough gains half again its volume. Bake them as is or brush them with a beaten egg and sprinkle with a little sugar. 7. Bake at 350 - 400°F (180-200°C) for 10-25 minutes, depending on the size of the mold. (For convection oven use 375°F.) Different brioche shapes: 1. La Brioche Mousseline: These molds are 13cm (5") high and 12 cm (4-3/4") in diameter. Either brush them with melted butter or line them with a double thickness of parchment paper. Roll about 450 grams of dough into an oval- shaped ball and place into the mold. When it has risen, brush with a beaten egg and cut a cross into the top with kitchen shears. 2. La Brioche Nanterre: This is brioche made in a rectangular loaf pan 7" long and 3½" high. Take 325 grams of dough, divide into 4 pieces, roll them into ovals, then stand them up in the mold. When they have risen, brush with egg and cut a cross into the tops. 3. La Brioche à Tête: This is brioche made in a fluted mold 7½" in diameter. Roll 250 grams of dough into a ball, place into mold, then poke a vertical hole in the center using your finger, all the way through. Take another 50 grams of dough and work into a pear shape; then insert it into the hole small end first. Brush with egg. For small individual fluted brioches: use 50 grams dough for the large part and 12 grams for the "head". Follow instructions for the brioche à tête. (When pressing a hole into dough, push all the way to the bottom of the mold.) Brioche freezes well, either in dough form or after baking. Take out the night before; in the morning wrap in aluminum foil and reheat in oven. Heaven! Grant's class notes: after removing from the refrigerator, flour a surface then knead slightly. Then roll into 2" cylinder and cut off a 50 gram piece. Work it to a round flat like a thick hamburger then tuck all edges under so the top is smooth and the bottom is tapered, then place into mold. Poke little finger to bottom of mold. Egg wash: 1 egg yolk + 1 T. water + pinch salt (salt makes egg yolk glisten) brush on egg wash after brioche has risen BIG 'UN butter & flour mold, use 250 grams or half a recipe of dough LOAF PAN: butter parchment paper so it sticks to loaf pan. Roll dough to 2" cylinder, cut off 80 gram pieces roll into cylinders 2/3 as tall as the loaf pan with rounded tops, then stack them in the pan each cylinder vertical like milk bottles in a milk crate, forming a 2x4 matrix. Steve's class notes: This is more a discussion of techniques than of a recipe. Use the recipe and use this writeup as helpful hints. The gauge of well prepared brioche dough is that it doesn't stick to anything. Make the dough according to the recipe that Guy has furnished. The next day, take it out of the refrigerator. It is best to work the dough when it is cold. Roll out a long cylinder of the dough, about the diameter of the bottom of one of the small brioche molds. Cut the cylinder into 50 gram sections. Make a ball of the dough, fixing the cracks in the dough on the bottom of the ball. It should be a little tapered on the bottom, but be ball shaped on top. To make a hole for the "head" of the brioche, push your little finger strongly into the center of the ball, all the way to the bottom. To make the heads (têtes), roll a small diameter cylinder, and cut into 12 gram section. Take each section, and make a pear shaped piece, the tapered end of which is inserted into the hole you made with your little finger. Let sit about 30 to 60 minutes to expand. Then "dorée" the brioches. Use a tbsp of water and an egg yolk and a pinch of salt. Whip together, and paint the brioches on the top after they have risen. It should take about 13 minutes at 400 deg F to bake the small brioches. For the larger brioche mold, about 17 cm diameter, use about 250 grams of dough. To make a brioche parisiènne, line a loaf pan with two lengths of buttered parchment paper (one piece longitudinal and the other side-to-side). Again roll out the dough to make a cylinder of around 2 inches diameter. Cut several sections, each one about 2/3 of the height of the loaf pan in length. This could be typically about 80 grams per section. They should be rounded and "ball" shaped on top.