Brioche

Since my last blog entry I have made bagels twice with less than great results, a yogurt sourdough and two types of brioche. I did not want to write about the bagels because I was not happy with them, nor was I pleased with the results of the yogurt sourdough, but the brioche... the brioche deserves some exaltation.

First, a little background. Brioche is a rich bread made with milk, eggs and butter or LOADS of butter, depending on the style of brioche being made. There are three basic styles of brioche: Rich Man's, Middle Class and Poor Man's. Since butter is an expensive ingredient, the names for the styles have to do with who can afford to use more of it. I made both Rich Man's and Middle Class to see what effect a change in butter content had on the flavor, texture and overall quality of the bread. Rich Man's contains a pound of butter to about three pounds of dough, whereas the Middle Class has a half pound of butter to about three pounds of dough.

Mixing brioche by hand is quite a challenge! The dough is mixed without the butter to start, allowed a 10 minute rest so that the gluten can develop, and then loaded with butter at the end of the mixing process. The butter is added gradually, and the dough needs to be mixed until all of it is incorporated after each addition. What this adds up to is a serious shoulder workout!

I made loaves out of the dough, and I was really happy with how they came out. I ate the Rich Man's right after it came out of the oven (the smell was hard to resist) and it was a real treat! The inside was so creamy and rich with butter that it tasted just like a croissant minus the layers. The outside was flaky, rich and dark brown. It was great the first day, but stayed good for more than a week due to the significant butter content.

As for the difference between the Rich Man's and the Middle Class; it was not major. There was a difference in flavor, but not a huge one. In fact, the biggest difference that I noticed between them was that I didn't need a napkin for the Middle Class because I didn't have butter covering my hands after eating it! Both were rich, creamy and soft on the inside and flaky on the outside. Overall, I think that Middle Class will be the type I make in the future so that I can enjoy the great taste without putting too much strain on my wallet.

Thanksopsomos

There is a Greek style of bread called Artos that is made to celebrate holidays and special occasions, a variation of which is Christopsomos used to celebrate Christmas. Since I made Christopsomos for Thanksgiving I will call the bread I made Thanksopsomos!
Chrsitopsomos is an enriched dough that includes spices, dried fruits, honey, almond extract, orange zest and an orange honey glaze that gives it both a great shine and added flavor. When making the loaf, one third of the dough was reserved in order to add a decorative piece to the outside. Before the piece was added the bread looked like this:


Then afterward (reminiscent of another Greek favorite: octopus):

Once the bread came out of the oven the glaze was brushed on and sprinkled with sesame seeds to create a truly impressive looking bread!
I made the bread a couple of days before the Thanksgiving celebration because I was also going to be making a cheesecake and knew that that was going to be labor intensive as well. For two days I walked into my apartment smelling the amazing scent of orange and honey with the undertones of fresh baked bread every time I opened my door. It was really hard to resist! Alas, my will to please my friends overcame my desire for instant gratification and the loaf made it to the table in one piece.
The texture was great, with a soft outside and light, springy inside speckled with chewy dried raisins and dried cranberries. On the orange-honey glaze made for good finger-licking, especially with the sesame seeds sticking to the fingers here and there as well. Everyone really loved the bread, and now I have a Christmas treat that I hope to make again either this year or next!

First Crumb

Today's bread was called anadama. It is an enriched bread made using polenta (a.k.a. corn grits), molasses and butter in addition to the usual flour, salt, water and yeast. The process started yesterday with the soaking of the grits, which allowed the corn to release some of its sugars and add more flavor to the bread. I am adding a picture of the dough itself because I like the way the ribbons of molasses looked in it before it was mixed.



The day was a warm one, a skawcha as they say back east where both me and the recipe for this bread come from. The bread wasted no time rising, and I even had to stick it in the fridge to slow its roll while I ran some errands. The beats I was listening to on wefunkradio.com probably didn't help any, as they were dropping the heat on show 536 with some supa-dope tracks from Lupe Fiasco and J-Live. If any of you reading this like underground hip-hop, there is no better place to find new tracks than wefunkradio.com that I know of. Seriously, do yourself a favor and check it out.

When the bread came out of the oven I realized that I am going to need to up the weight per bread pan since the loaves did not quite make it up and out of the pans as I would have liked them to. These loaves weighed about 1.5 pounds each, so next time I am going to have to try 2-pounders.

As for the taste, it was complex. The bread smelled like molasses while it was baking, so I knew I was in for some good flavor even before it came out of the oven. I ate the end piece first, and it was really crunchy and crackle-y. The flavor of molasses was sharp and strong in the end pieces, as the caramelization of the sugars is concentrated there. The inner pieces were the real treat though.

With the chewing following my first bite of an inner piece the taste of butter was noticeable. Even though there was only a small amount of butter in the recipe, the sweet, creamy flavor of the Plugra butter I had used shone through. As I chewed on, the caramelized flavors from the crust started to work their way in. The variety of flavors doing their thing together was great, and the joys of this bread didn't stop there. There was also the crispness of the crust, the chewiness of the inner crumb, and the little crunchy bits of grits working together to create a unique texture. What an interesting bread! I hope to try it with a different type of molasses next time to see what kind of effect that has.