Brioche mark II

Well. I have found happiness. And, unsurprisingly, it contains a mildly alarming amount of butter.

Further to the last brioche post, I was a little disappointed with the results. Step forward Michel Roux Jr (not literally, that would have been far more exciting than me getting a book out of the cupboard. Which is what actually happened).

Anyway, this epic cloud of butter and egg enriched heaven was what emerged a mere 18 hours after the process began...

It was incredible...
Here is the recipe (slightly altered by my own incompetence but it worked beautifully all the same...). We froze half of it and it revived itself really nicely too. Again, I'd always use a machine as I don't have arms of steel (or even anything more solid than a rubber band).

• 15g fresh yeast
• 500g plain flour
• 6 eggs
• 1  tsp salt
• 50g (vanilla) sugar
• 250g unsalted french buttery loveliness (we used President), nice and soft and warm
• some egg wash to glaze

Method:
First, put the flour and yeast into a bowl and rub in the yeast, then add the eggs one at a time to your mixer with the dough hook on a reasonably slow speed. When it's all incorporated, it should become smooth and elasticy after about 5 mins. Then add the butter in a few additions, again with the mixer going, ensuring it's all thoroughly mixed in. Give it another 7 or so minutes at a slightly faster knead. You will create a silken ball of buttery wonder which you may want to stroke. When you can tear yourself away, put it into a clean bowl, cover with cling film and plonk it in the fridge overnight. Evening is ideal to do this bit - knock it back after 4 hours then go to bed, dreaming of Brioche clouds and asking for forgiveness from the Gods of cardiovascular disease.

In the morning your dough will be pretty solid but risen. Remove it from the fridge, give it a knead to wake it up gently, then place it into a loaf tin (well buttered). Cover with loose clingfilm (or put it in a pedal bin liner) and leave it to warm up and rise ay about 1/3 (about 2 hours or so). Preheat the oven to 180 and, giving it lots of headroom as it will puff up wonderfully) bake for 40 mins, adding a small foil hat after half an hour if it's looking a bit too brun (la Francais pour 'burnt'!). Leave it to cool if you can, then welcome to wheat and dairy heaven.

Vive la France!!

JB x

Christening cake

Here is little Ethan's christening cake :)

The recipe is from BBC good food and is FANTASTIC - just the right texture for a large cake as it's deliciously moist and just the right mixture between a madeira and a sponge. I've successfully scaled it up to a 12" round and also scaled it to do a 9" and 7" as here and it always comes out a treat - rises just enough to give a lovely light texture but not so much you have to cut loads off the height to get a flat surface (although offcuts are never a problem for the chef, or indeed the husband of the chef ;)).
Click for recipe link...

(Check me out, I learned links!)

The little dude also took a casual selfie last weekend when he was playing with my phone... had to put it in cos it's so cute!

He's not quite got the hang of the photography yet...!