butter – Tango's Baking

For someone who is not hugely big on bread, I love brioche! ❤️❤️ Its fluffy and soft texture makes it my favourite bread to eat, and I am sure that it is also one of many people’s favourites. Whether as a classic burger bun or as a glorious ice cream sandwich, there would certainly be something that tickles your fancy.

Brioche is an enriched dough with eggs and butter, so it does take more time than normal white bread as it takes longer to rise as a result. But trust me when I say that it is definitely worth the effort! 😋 This recipe that I used is very straightforward and remember just a bit of patience is key! 😉

(Psssst I actually think I might have been too patient this time and over-proofed mine… 😅)

This recipe is inspired by the brioche recipe found in ‘How to Make Bread‘ by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou.

Brioche Loaf

Quantity: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

10g / 1 tbsp fried/active yeast

60g / ¼ cup whole milk, slightly warmed

250g / 2 cups strong white/bread flour

30g / 2½ tbsp caster sugar

4g / ¾ tsp salt

2 medium eggs

100g / 6½ tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, add the yeast to the warm milk and stir until it is fully dissolved.

2. Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a separate bowl.

3. Beat the eggs together and add it to the yeast solution. Mix and then add the yeast solution to the flour mixture.

4. Using your hands, mix the mixtures together until they come together to form a wet, sticky dough.

5. Cover and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

6. After the 10 minutes, knead the dough by pulling a portion of it up from the side and pressing it into the middle. Repeat another eight times, and the dough should start to resist. (This kneading process should not take longer than around 10 seconds.) Cover the dough and let it rise for another 10 minutes.

7. Repeat step 6 one more time.

8. Cut the butter up into small species and push it into the dough.

9. Knead the dough to start incorporating the butter. Cover and let it rise for another 10 minutes.

10. Knead the dough again for the last time, ensuring all the butter is fully incorporated.

11. Cover and let it rise for 1 hour, or until the dough is doubled in size.

12. While waiting, prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with butter.

13. Knock the air out of the dough and transfer it onto a floured work surface.

14. Divide the dough into three equal portions and roll them between your hands to form perfectly round, smooth balls.

15. Place the dough balls across the prepared loaf tin. Cover and let it rise to double in size, which will take around 30-45 minutes.

16. While waiting for the dough to finish proofing, preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

17. Beat an egg with a pinch of salt. Once the dough has finished rising, brush the egg wash all over it. Snip the top of each bump with scissors.

18. Place a cupful of water at the bottom of the oven to create steam. Bake the dough for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and the loaf makes a hollow sound when tap at the bottom. Cool on a wire rack when ready.

When I watched Julie and Julia a while ago, there was a scene when Amy Adams’s character expressed that when ‘the day there’s a meteorite heading toward the earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter’. Certainly not a good move for your cholesterol, but one cannot deny the pleasure butter can bring to your food. For a baker like me, butter is such a staple in many baking recipes, it seems inevitable that I will always have a supply of butter in my home. But what kind of bakes will allow you to showcase the beauty of butter the most? I would say it’s none other than some flaky, buttery puff pastry.

As a fellow blogger (Hi, terrepruitt! 😊) asked me about the puff pastry bakes on my cover photo a couple of days ago, it reminds of a period of time when I was desperately trying to master it at home. If one is to ask me if I have any tips on making puff pastry, my answer will be a simple one word: ‘patience’. Patience, patience, patience until you practically run out of patience by how many times I utter this word. The times I found myself struggling with the lamination of the pastry are often times when I rushed it. A good puff pastry can take up to several hours to make with constant procedures of rolling, folding, chilling and resting in and out of the fridge. It’s one LONG process (which does make me appreciate that some of you might just decide to save the effort and buy ready-made puff pastry from the supermarket altogether 😜). For those of you who don’t have much patience like me, there is an easy alternative though. And this is rough puff pastry.

So what is rough puff pastry? It is basically a cheating method of achieving puff pastry without the long lamination process. A rough puff pastry takes less than an hour to make as opposed to several hours for a full puff pastry. Only will you get the same signature flakiness in the pastry, but it also tastes just as good! The only one downside is that because you have no defined layers in your rough puff pastry, it will not rise as high as the full puff pastry would. But, this still means that rough puff pastry still can be used in a vast array of recipes – sweet AND savoury!

English Breakfast and Teriyaki Chicken & Cucumber Puff Canapés

The recipe I used for the rough puff pastry is by Gordon Ramsay and can be found on the BBC Good Food website. (Link: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2403/roughpuff-pastry-)

What other ideas do you have for using puff pastry? Feel free to share with me in the comments!

Tag: butter

Who Doesn’t Like A Good Ol’ Brioche?

Butter Yourself Up!