Brie & Blueberry Laminated Brioche

A few weeks ago I was reading Hamelman's recipe for brioche when I noticed in his side notes that a feuillete or laminated dough can be made from a brioche dough. While I realized that of course it can be done , it's just something that had never occured to me before. Brioche is such a rich dough to begin with, the idea of laminating even more butter into it just seemed a little over the top. Sometimes though over the top can be very good and this looked to me like it might just be one of those times. Although I had Hamelman's base formula for brioche as well as others I've used before, I didn't have any for making the feuillete. Specifically what I was looking for was the ratio of roll-in butter I would need to do the folds. Web searches turned up very little, however one site did have some actual photos of a class at King Arthur being conducted by Mr. Hamelman making up a pastry using brioche feuillete, so that was helpful in giving me some idea how to use it. Link to site: http://mzkitchen.com/?p=2120

I put a query into Andy/ananda asking if he had any ideas on it , and while he'd read about it in Bo Freiberg's book on pastry, he'd never made it himself. I decided to just wing it, see how it worked, and adjust the ratio if necessary. The first attempt I made was based on a 91% butter to flour ratio, down from the original 110% butter-108% flour ratio I'd first shown Andy when I started putting a beta recipe together. Andy thought I was a “brave fellow” for wanting to try it , which I thought was a very polite way of him saying that I might just be a little too over the top with those numbers. Having made brioche dough on numerous occasions over the years this one mixed up well with no surprises for me and I gave it a 1hr bulk ferment and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Next afternoon while I laminated the bulk of the dough for feuillete, I took a portion of it and made up a few brioche tete to bake off and see how they turned out.   They turned out fairly well I thought, not having made them for a few years and I was very happy with the flavour. Unfortunately I'd run out of time that day to do anything more with the feuillete and decided to leave it for the next day. When I got home from work the next afternoon I set about rolling out the dough to a 14x9 inch rectangle and dividing that into 3” wide strips of dough that I piped a 3/4” strip of filling (recipe to follow) along the length of each, then alongside the length of that strip I placed blueberries side by side. These were then rolled string fashion, or like you would a cinnamon bun roll, to 15 1/2” and then made into a 3 strand braid and placed in a loaf tin to rise.  It took about an 1 ¼ hrs to rise and 25-30 minutes in a 380F oven to bake. When it came out I immediately applied a thin apricot glaze to seal it and help prevent staling, then sprinkled it with toasted almond slices for garnish. When it had cooled sufficiently I drizzled the loaf with some white vanilla fondant I'd made a few days before.  The braid didn't rise quite as high as I would have liked since by this time the dough had lost some power from the additional day it'd had before I could use it, but it turned out well enough that I knew I had to try it again . As far as the flavour went?... pretty incredible. I'll get into that more a little later in this post but for now....Wow! Some photos of the the finished loaf.

The second dough was started the night before I finished eating the first loaf, (about 48 hrs..or less ) my wife being slightly appalled at how quickly I'd devoured this large, ultra rich pastry. A few muttered comments were made regarding possible repercussions were this to become a regular habit. Something about being married to a fat guy.. but I can't say for certain. Seriously though, this sort of thing is something I rarely eat, being in my 'once in a blue moon' category of food. With the second mix I wanted to make the dough a little stiffer so that I could hopefully get a high and more defined look to the braid. Other than decreasing the hydration slightly and dropping the roll-in butter ratio to 72% overall, I made the dough as I did before, following the same length of bulk fermentation, same amount of degassing and overnight retardation in the fridge. This time though I had the next day off from work and was able to do the lamination and product make up in one day, which I think resulted in a better looking product. The dough doesn't suffer from the lower ratio of roll-in butter, in fact I think you could reduce it another 5%-10% and not notice any appreciable difference in the finished product. OK , now about the filling and flavour. This seems like a natural sort of pastry that you could use a cream cheese filling of some sort in,.. and it is, but I've just never acquired a taste for the stuff. I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from using it as a base for a filling if they like the flavour, but I think there are more elegant options available for a pastry like this. The choice I made was to use Brie, combined with honey, toasted almond meal, puff pastry crumbs, and beaten egg white to bind it into a consistency that can be easily piped. Brie works well with the fruit and nuts , not overpowering them, and also melting into the soft cells of the bread itself.

• room temp or soft Brie-114 gr

• lightly toasted almond meal-25 gr

• liquid honey-20 gr

• puff pastry crumbs-15 gr

• beaten egg white-5 gr

note: cake crumbs can be substituted for puff pastry crumbs

egg whites should be beaten lightly till they run fluidly without lumps

The fruit I had at the time, and still have the most of, is blueberries. We have a couple of very prolific blueberry bushes in our backyard that challenge us every year in trying to figure out how to use them all up before the next years crop comes in. I think we're about six months behind at present, so it's just an ongoing problem for us every year , but we try to make the best of it. The beauty of a dough like this is it's versatility. It will accept a wide variety of fillings ranging from sweet to savoury, (with some adjustments to the sugar ratio for savoury fillings being necessary) so it really depends on what flavour you want to have, or what you have on hand at the moment to use as a filling. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything within reason that this dough won't lend itself to and enhance. The flavour is of course predominated by butter, but also with that great taste of a long fermented yeast dough that permeates every bit of the silky soft crumb. Very similar to a croissant or danish dough, just better...by a long shot!

Procedure: Place all ingredients except butter in the mixing bowl and mix on 1st speed until all the ingredients are incorporated. Mix on 2nd speed for 8-9 minutes until the dough is strong and resistant

to the touch. Take the cold butter and beat it flat with a rolling pin until it's pliable and add in chunks

continuosly until all of it has been absorbed. This will take some time depending on your mixer. I

found that I had to work the dough by hand on the counter for about 5 minutes using the slap and

fold technique until the dough was developed enough that it would 'sheet'. To test for sheeting you

should be able to gradually stretch a small piece of dough out very thinly until it's almost transparent.

Let stand, covered at room temp for 1 hr then fold the dough, recover, and refrigerate overnight, degassing 2-3 times over the next several hours. The next day the dough is ready to use as a traditional brioche dough or for doing the roll-in and folds for feuillete.

To make brioche feuillete: Add cold pliable butter and flour to mixer fitted with the paddle and mix on 1st speed for 3-4 minutes , then on 2nd speed until all the flour is incorporated. Shape into a square or rectangle (depending on what lamination method will be used) and chill to the same temp as the brioche dough in the refrigerator. Roll the butter in using preferred lamination method and give a

total of 3x3 folds plus 1x4 fold, resting the dough for 30 minutes in refrigerator between each fold.

The dough is ready to use at this point.

Note: For a more thorough description of the lamination method see ananda's blog

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16082/laminated-yeasted-dough-construction

Pate Brioche Feuillete is not exactly health food but it is good for the soul , being one of those special occasion additions to a baker's repertoire that can be useful to have come Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year.

All the best,

Franko