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Paste, Brioche
Brioche paste may be served in a great variety of ways, all of which are excellent. It may be baked in one large cake; in fancy shapes, such as rings and twists; or in small loaves, rolls, or buns. Gruyere and Parmesan cheese or sweets may be introduced into it, or small portions may be stewed in soup, or fried, or used as the outer crust in which rissoles are cooked. Its most usual form, however, is that of a sort of double cake, the two parts being moulded separately, and moistened before they are joined, to cause them to adhere closely to one another. The upper portion of the brioche should be made smaller than the lower one, and the entire cake should be brushed over with beaten egg before it is put into the oven. It must be baked in a well-heated oven. The quantity only which will be wanted for immediate use should be made at one time, as brioche paste will not keep. When properly prepared it is light and springy to the touch before it is baked, and it ought to rise in the sponge to fully twice its original size. It is made as follows. Take a pound (weighting sixteen ounces) of dried and sifted flour. Divide it into four parts, and with one of these parts make the leaven. To do this, put the flour into a bowl, make a hollow in the middle of it, and pour into this hollow half an ounce of German yeast dissolved in a spoonful or two of warm water. Add as much water as is required to make the whole into a soft smooth paste, gather it into a ball, and put it into a bowl large enough to contain three times its quantity. Score the paste lightly across the top with the blunt side of a knife, cover with a cloth, and put it in a warm place to rise; it will be ready in about twenty minutes. Whilst it is rising take the remaining three parts of the flour, make a hole in the centre, and put into this hole a quarter of an ounce of salt, half an ounce of powdered sugar dissolved in two table-spoonfuls of tepid water, ten ounces of butter, which has been washed in two or three waters, squeezed in a cloth to free it from moisture, and broken into small pieces, and four eggs freed from the specks. Work all gently together with the fingers, and add one by one three more eggs, until the paste is quite smooth, and neither too hard to be worked easily nor so soft that it sticks to the fingers. When the leaven is sufficiently risen, put it upon the paste, and mix both together with the fingers gently and thoroughly. Put the dough into a basin, and leave it in a warm place all night. Early on the following morning knead it up afresh, let it rise two hours longer, and knead once more before it is baked. Brioche paste should be put into a well-heated oven. The time required for baking depends, of course, upon the size of the cake. Its appearance will soon show when it is done enough. The materials here given, if baked in one cake, would require about half an hour. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for half a dozen persons.
This is a classic sponge-and-dough brioche at roughly 60 per cent butter — richer than most modern home recipes and correspondingly slow. The instructions are sound; the units, the yeast and the overnight timing are what need translating.
- The hinge: keep the dough cool while you work itWith ten ounces of butter to a pound of flour, the paste is held together by an emulsion that breaks if the butter softens past the plastic stage. Work in a cool room, add the butter in small pieces as directed, and stop as soon as the dough is smooth and just tacky rather than sticky.
- German yeast"German yeast" is fresh compressed baker's yeast. Half an ounce is about 14 g; substitute roughly 1 heaped teaspoon (4-5 g) of instant dried yeast, mixed into the flour rather than dissolved. A quarter ounce of salt is about 7 g, half an ounce of sugar about 14 g.
- EggsFour eggs first, then three more one at a time — seven in total for a pound of flour. Eggs of the period were probably somewhat smaller than today's large eggs, so start with six and add the seventh only if the dough is still stiff. "Freed from the specks" most likely means picking out any blood spots.
- Washed butterButter was washed to rinse out residual buttermilk and salt, which shortened its keeping and threw off the seasoning. Modern unsalted butter needs none of this; use it straight from the packet, cool but pliable.
- The overnight rise"A warm place all night" belongs to an unheated Victorian kitchen. In a modern house that dough will over-ferment and collapse. Give it an hour at room temperature, then refrigerate overnight; the cold rest also firms the butter, which makes the morning shaping possible.
- Oven temperature"A well-heated oven" probably corresponds to somewhere around 400-425F (200-220C), though the book gives no figure. Small rolls take 15-20 minutes at that heat; the single large cake described may do better started hot and finished nearer 350F (180C), or the crust will colour long before the centre sets. Internal temperature around 190F (88C).
- The double cakeThis is essentially the brioche a tete: a large ball with a smaller ball seated on top, though the book specifies no mould. Press a deep well into the base with a floured finger before setting the head in, or the top may slide off to one side as it rises.
- Yield and keepingA pound of flour with this enrichment gives one large brioche or about a dozen individual ones — the book's "half a dozen persons" is generous per head. The warning that the paste will not keep refers to the raw dough at room temperature; baked brioche is best the day it is made, and stales fast because of the egg.
Brioche is the great butter-and-egg bread of northern France, and its richest versions are often associated with Normandy, where the butter was. The name is generally traced to Old French brier, a dialect form of broyer, meaning to work or pound dough — an etymology repeated more often than it is documented. What makes this entry characteristic of Cassell's is that brioche appears not under cakes or breads but among the pastes, as "Paste, Brioche" in the alphabetical run: the compiler treats it as a foundation the cook learns once and then deploys in a dozen directions, from cheese-flavoured rolls to the casing for rissoles to dumplings stewed in soup. The reference to "German yeast" places it in the era when compressed fresh yeast, much of it imported from central Europe, was coming into British kitchens alongside brewers' barm and homemade leavens.