Sourdough Brioche 50% Whole Wheat 25% Butter
The first time I baked brioche I did a test bake baking them as buns. For today’s bake I decided that I’d plait my brioche dough and bake it in a pullman pan for fun. I reduced the butter because I ended up not having enough for 50% so decided to go ahead and make adjustments and make it at 25% butter, poor man’s brioche LOL.
Levain
Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth.
Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
At a temperature of 78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.
Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk, eggs, salt, sugar and levain. Mix and then break up the levain into smaller pieces. Next add the flours. Mix on low speed until there is no dry flour remaining. Once incorporated increase the speed gradually to medium. Mix at medium until the gluten is moderately developed. With the mixer running add the room temperature butter one pat at a time until it is fully incorporated, waiting until each pat is well incorporated before adding the next. Continue to mix until you can pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.
Shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 3-4 hours at 82ºF. There should be some rise visible at this stage.
You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier, remember if you do so the final proof will take longer. Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight.
Prepare your pans by greasing them with butter or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Transfer the dough onto the bench and divide it into four. Shape each into a roll, allow to rest 5 mins. Next like a baguette, shape each roll into a long log with tapered ends. Next do a 4 strand plait. Tuck the ends underneath and transfer into the prepared pan.
Cover and let proof for 6-8 hours, longer time if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.
Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash (1 egg with 1 tsp of milk and pinch of salt). Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.
Bake the loaves for 35-40 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 35-40 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot to keep the top crust soft.
Comments
So is this like Caroline's Challah twisted bread? Very creative, I like it.
Thank you Ming, I think it is one of the common ways of shaping brioche. I’ve added photos of the baked loaf. It is a bit underfermented. It seemed to past the finger poke test but it probably needed another 30 mins or so of fermentation. I don’t like how there is so much separation between the plaits.
I put this video together of this bake. No crumb shots yet.
That is freaking cool video Benny, thanks for sharing it with us.
Thank you Ming, glad you enjoyed it.
Looks great. I love the braiding used in the Pullman pan. I think from memory you have the 9" size? Great rise.
Cheers,
Gavin
Thank you Gavin, yes this loaf had a huge rise. I’m so used to baking with 100% whole grain now that whenever there is bread flour in a loaf I’m surprised at how big it gets. Yes you have a good memory, I have the 9x4x4” pullman pan.
Benny
That’s a gorgeous loaf. I started a sweet levain following your measurements. So far it’s not doing anything. It’s been in a warm ish spot since this afternoon. Not sure if I should add more of everything or what. The other two levains I made are both huge and I’ve stored them to use tomorrow so I know the rye starter is good. What do you suggest?
Thank you Caroline. What kind of sugar did you use? Did you use the exact same measurements, did you change anything?
I used brown sugar . I see above for this particular bread you have two different sugars but the original formula that I had copied was 14 g brown sugar 14g starter 100%, 18g filtered water and 41g flour ( I used fresh milled Danco rye). It’s quite stiff like a dough but hasn’t budged and was mixed at 4 pm yesterday.
I’ve never tried it with whole rye, but it really should work. However, if it isn’t working at this point that one isn’t going to work.
I’d try it again and increase the hydration, it sounds like your flour is absorbing more water than my whole wheat and the hydration might just be too low and overall too challenging for the microbes. However, as you increase the hydration you’ll need to keep the ratio of sugar:water about the same. So going by the ratio above for brown sugar to water, you used 14:18 so 7:9 sugar to water. If you increase your hydration for the sake of argument to 100% so 41 g water then you’d need to use 32 g of sugar.
Benny
I think the rye is just very thirsty. Will keep you posted. Thank you Bennie!
That’s a gorgeous loaf. I started a sweet levain following your measurements. So far it’s not doing anything. It’s been in a warm ish spot since this afternoon. Not sure if I should add more of everything or what. The other two levains I made are both huge and I’ve stored them to use tomorrow so I know the rye starter is good. What do you suggest?
Duplicate
Well our dinner guests loved the bread, I’ll have to remember in the future to push the final proof further on this. The flavour was wonderful despite dropping the butter into poor man’s brioche territory.
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By the time you count the butter used to coat the pan you are back in safe territory 😊. Gorgeous bread!
Thank you Caroline, I hope you have success with your higher hydration sweet levain today.
I used the portions of sugar/water that you stated for a higher hydration and added it to the very stiff dry mixture I already had. It has more than doubled already. I see you say 300% rise. Is there a reason for that much rise before considering it done ? I will use it tomorrow so should I refrigerate it as I do my others when they are ready ? Thank you for the off topic tutorial ! c
So it sounds like it was just too low hydration and the microbes were suffering. Yes I would refrigerate it. Now given the issues I wouldn't say that this levain is going to be typical for a sweet levain. It may end up being more acidic than my usual ones. The long period is inactivity and then the refrigeration may end of causing it be to be more acidic and allow the LAB to grow. So you might want to try again and use the levain at peak to get a more typical experience.
I don't consider peak to be at a predetermined degree of rise, I consider peak to be when the levain has just started to lose its dome. It is just that for this levain for me it is 3-3.5x rise.
Benny
I think I will take some out and start a new one that’s thicker as you say and see what I get. No pH paper May need to get some… look what you’ve started now ❤️🙏
Fantastic bake Benny. I’m sure this would make some great French Toast!
Best,
Ian
Thank you Ian, it makes good toast, dry too.
Benny
Looks great Benny!
Thank you Troy, what did you bake this week?
Benny
Finally did a with and without YW comparison on a Country Loaf. Hope to have a post up sometime today. 👍
Your YW bake. I’m really pleased with how mine is behaving. Trying not to mess it up!
I need to make a new sweet levain as well since I messed it up yesterday and then bake with it. So much to do so little time.