November 10, 2007 - 11:48am
Texture of a Brioche
I've been trying out a pumpkin brioche--very delicious! I've never made brioche before. I had always imagined it to be fine and fairly close textured, but when I mix the (room temp) butter in at the end, as recommended by Prof Calvel, the texture is very open. What's the correct texture?
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yes, your imagination is right. brioche is supposed to be finely grained and tight.what's the method you're following? i use julia childs recipe and it gets a 15-20 min knead and two punch downs. so i'm curious to hear about calvels method.
happy baking,
ry
I have The Taste of Bread; he says butter should only be added at the end after the gluten is developed. There is also a photo of a sliced brioche and it looks very airy.
I just checked in a book rarely mentioned here: Shirley Corriher's Cookwise. She has two methods for brioche making: The first yields a very light, airy brioche (butter added at the end), the second is for a cakelike brioche (butter added along with other ingredients). I've done it both ways; I actually prefer the cakelike one. I also am looking to use it in making bread pudding, and I think the more cakelike one would work better. Interestingly, she says that in regards to the cakelike method, that "This dough rises poorly during both rises but amazingly well in the oven because steam is formed from the water that is not tied up in the gluten." I definitely noticed that--it rose so well that it touched the top heating element, giving the loaf a black stripe!
Thanks for your input.
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