Let them eat Brioche!

This weeks bread in BBA is Brioche, very rich, and lots of butter (yes, I know I already said that, but it bears repeating). Peter Reinhart provides three different formulations, Rich man's, Middle Class, and Poor man's brioche. From a quick perusal of the recipes (which I don't have nearby right now) the only difference is the amount of butter involved. 1/2 cup for the poor man's, 1 cup for the middle, and two cups for the Rich Man's brioche.

I started off deciding to try something different. Another cookbook I have (100 great breads by Paul Hollywood) has a recipe for Apricot Brioche, so I asked Kenora to pick up some dried apricots on the way home and we set out to make Brioche.

After following the BBA recipes for a couple of weeks, with nice exact measurements (so many grams) it felt awkward to go back to using a rough measurement ("2½ scant cups").
Despite some issues with the recipe (I don't think it's possible to get the yield the book talks about), and overbaking it slightly (that isn't a light golden brown in the picture) this turned out so nicely! I had to try the BBA brioche.

We decided to do the Poor Man's brioche; it mixed up a lot easier than the dough yesterday did, and seemed to rise more evenly.

The problem I had was:  what style of bread do I want to make?
The classic brioche (to the left)? A normal loaf (below left)? Or mini-brioches (below right)?

Well, as those who know me can attest, my answer when faced with a decision like this is... "embrace the power of And" ... so, soon I had 10 loaves of Brioche baking (all from one batch of dough)

The things these pictures can't get across are

• the smell of the brioche baking; I swear I gained a few pounds just breathing the air while these little beauties were in the oven
• How greasy the dough actually was; in total, it weighed less than two pounds, but it was about 25% butter
• How light and flaky the finished bread was; I had a couple of slices of apricot brioche for breakfast this morning, toasted, with butter (yes, MORE BUTTER) and oh, it was heavenly!

Here's the collection of breads from this afternoon's baking session... anyone know how to slice the classic Brioche? [Apart from using a knife you wiseguys and wisegals:) ]

Next week is Casatiello, then Challah (which I might skip) then a Ciabatta.

Bread Bakers Apprentice - Bagels

(or how I almost killed a KitchenAid stand mixer)

Have you ever had one of those moments where you're in the middle of something, and you suddenly think you've made a critical and expensive mistake? That was about how I felt when I heard grinding coming from our big KitchenAid mixer as I started mixing the dough for the bagels. Then the paddle stopped moving temporarily, and I started seeing little bits of smoke coming up.

After a brief moment of panic, I started hand-kneading the dough, and boy that was challenging.

Bread Bakers Apprentice - Anadama

Well, since one of the things I am enjoying making is bread, we bought ourselves a really nice little book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I've noticed during some of my googling, and blog-reading, that there's an unofficial challenge out there for people to cook each recipe in the book, in order, at the rate of one bread per week.

Well, I don't plan to do every bread in the system (some of the decorated ones I might pass on) I do plan to go through most of the book.

Bread one is "Anadama Bread" so that's what I started tonight.

All I've had to do so far is mix cornmeal and water... I think even I can manage that much. Now it soaks on the counter overnight and tomorrow morning I start the next few steps... this recipe has me waiting around a lot. Updates will follow, as will pictures.