Delightfully pillowy, with an incredibly rich yet featherlight crumb, the buttery brioche is truly a bread like no other. French in origin and a staple of viennoiserie, it’s made in the same way as any other yeasted bread but enriched with eggs, butter, milk, and sugar to become something so much more. Yet it’s these very same ingredients that make brioche a slightly more finicky dough, requiring an attention to the temperature of your ingredients, a rather extensive kneading of the dough, and sufficient time to rise. Beyond that, the dough is incredibly easy to work with and pliable, making it the perfect base for fanciful shapings. Step-by-step, every stage of the process is outlined here, from mixing to shaping. There’s even a bonus recipe for Strawberry Bostock that’ll turn your beautiful loaf of brioche into a jammy, almondy treat. But be warned, this bread could very well ruin all others for you.
Brioche: It’s All About the Butter
Butter plays many roles in this dough, adding so much more than flavor
One of the main ingredients that makes this recipe an enriched bread, unsalted European-style butter adds unmatched flavor, texture, and depth to our brioche recipe. The butter sits at about 34% of the flour weight, making for an incredibly rich, tender dough. You’ll notice that butter is the last ingredient added in this recipe, and that’s for good reason. Fats like butter slow down the gluten-forming process, which is part of the reason why enriched breads typically call for a longer mixing time. The fat in the butter coats protein strands, acting like a barrier that prevents gluten proteins from sticking to one another, inhibiting the growth of long chains that ultimately create the bread’s feathery texture. So, it’s important that gluten structures are already formed before the butter is added; otherwise, you won’t get that distinct, pull-apart texture.
