Brioche

I've been promising various friends that I would write up the brioche recipe for them: it is taken essentially from Julia Child's book "Baking With Julia" (a wonderful book: please do yourself a favour and run out and buy a copy!)

Stage 1:
1/3 cup warm milk
1 large egg
yeast
2 cups all purpose flour (I like to use King Arthur)
To start with, mix the warmed milk, the egg, about a tablespoon of yeast and one cup of the flour together into a shaggy mess in the bowl of a heavy duty stand mixer. Cover with the remaining flour. Leave uncovered to let the yeast come to life: the flour will 'crack', almost like a mini-earthquake after half an hour or so.

Stage 2:
1/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups ap flour
Add the sugar, the lightly beated eggs and one cup of the flour to the mixing bowl. Mix on slow until it comes together, add enough of the remaining flour that it creates a soft, slightly sticky dough. Now let the machine knead it for fifteen minutes or longer. Here the recipe recommends using medium-high speed, but my mixer's handbook has a "thou shalt not use the doughhook on high speed or any speed higher than '2'" injunction, together with "modify your bread recipes accordingly". So, give it at least 15 minutes, maybe longer, until you have a lovely dough.

Stage 3:
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter
Bash the butter until it is cold but pliable, a similar stiffness to the dough. Cut into pieces, and gradually add to the dough, kneading for another few minutes after all the butter is added to ensure that it is well mixed in. The dough should feel cool, slightly tacky to the touch, and should have an almost silky feel to it. Put it in a large buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave to rise.

After the dough has doubled, reach under the dough and run your hands around to collapse it: cover it again, and leave it in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours, preferably overnight. It's now ready for use in your favourite brioche recipe.

For the dessert pizza, flatten a round of dough (half of the batch above) into a 9 inch circle (I put it into a parchment lined nine-inch circular stoneware pie plate.
Bake it at 375 for about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Top with coulis and drizzle with melted chocolate, white or otherwise.

Yours, because I felt you kneaded to know,
N.