Brioche
- 2 cups of flour
- 6 g salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 sachet of instant dried yeast, or 11g fresh compact yeast
- ¼ cup of warm milk
- ½ cup cold butter, cubed
- egg wash (a slightly beaten egg with a tiny bit of water added)
Makes 12 buns.
In a small bowl, mix the yeast together with warm milk (make sure the milk isn’t hot – otherwise, you’ll ‘kill’ the yeast) and put it aside. In another bowl, add the flour. Make a little well in the centre of the bowl, and add the eggs and yeast into that ‘well.’ Slowly combine. Once it’s all combined, add salt and sugar.
Knead for about 15-20 minutes, or until the dough is elastic (like chewing gum). This is going to take willpower to keep going – put on some good music to keep you company, and use the thought of eating these, warm and freshly baked, as motivation! Keep going! You can do it!
Add half of the cubed butter, and continue to knead until incorporated into the dough (this part might become messy, and you need to knead quickly, because your hands will melt the butter). Add the rest and keep kneading until you have a smooth, elastic dough.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm or a cloth and leave it on the counter to rise for an hour. Knock back, and divide the dough into 12 individual balls. Shape the balls into a Russian doll shape, and then place each little brioche into a muffin tin. Cover with clingfilm and put it in the fridge to rise overnight.
The next day, take the brioche out of the fridge. Take your eggwash and smear a little bit on top of each brioche while the oven pre-heats to 180°C. Put in oven, reduce heat to 160°C. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. These are best eaten while still warm!
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This item was part of our food swap on November 15th, 2012. Natalie swapped her brioche (a serving size = 3 brioches) for the following items:
Divide & Savour 
So this recipe here is the one that I used for the swap – however, there are a bunch of things I noticed afterwards that I’d change. I think I’d add a tiny bit less butter – while I’m totally aware that butter makes everything taste about a zillion times more delicious, I found these to be juuuuust slightly heavy on the butter. Plus, it will make kneading the dough a lot easier. Your arms will thank you for it.
Also – I re-tried the recipe, but didn’t let the dough rise overnight. Just did the initial one hour rise, and then put it in the oven… this may or may not have been because I was ridiculously impatient. Resulted in more ‘bread-like’ dough, and less of a flake-y crust. I think I’ll stick to this method next time because… well… I am an impatient baker. What can I say.