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Brioche Paste
Sift on a table twelve ounces of the best flour; place three ounces of it into a bowl, make a fountain in the centre, place in it one-half ounce concentrated yeast and half gill lukewarm water; dilute the yeast with the water, then knead the whole together for five minutes; then fill up the bowl with lukewarm water and set in a warm place to raise for thirty minutes. Make a fountain in the flour on the table, put in it half an ounce fine sugar, half teaspoon salt, one tablespoon milk, four ounces butter and two eggs. Briskly knead with the hand for five minutes, then add two more eggs; knead with the hand for five minutes more, then add one more egg. Knead again to mix the egg. Lift the batter up from the table with the hand, and sharply throw it against the table as hard as possible; repeat this five times more. Thoroughly drain the water from the other bowl of dough, add it to this paste; sharply mix with the hand for five minutes. Place the dough in a large basin, cover with a damp towel and place in the ice box for four hours. Knead the dough on a table for five minutes, replace it in the basin, cover it, reset in the ice box for another hour.
This is a full-butter brioche dough built by the old "floating sponge" method, where a small ball of yeasted dough is proofed submerged in warm water. The recipe stops at the chilled dough, so shaping and baking are left to you.
- The floating spongeThe 3 oz of flour, yeast and water make a small ball that is covered with lukewarm water and left 30 minutes; as it ferments it rises and floats. Drain it well before adding it to the main dough, and do not skip the draining or the paste will be slack.
- Yeast"Concentrated yeast" means compressed fresh cake yeast. Half an ounce is about 14 g fresh, or roughly 1 1/2 teaspoons instant dry yeast. Water for the sponge should be lukewarm, not hot.
- UnitsA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (60 ml). Twelve ounces of flour is by weight, about 2 3/4 cups; 4 ounces of butter is one American stick. The eggs total five, added in three stages.
- Butter temperature is the hingeThe butter must be soft enough to smear but still cool, around 60F. Warm butter breaks out of the dough and the paste turns greasy and will not hold gas; too cold and it stays in lumps.
- The throwingSlapping the dough on the table is gluten development, not theatre. A stand mixer with the dough hook for 8 to 12 minutes on medium reaches the same point: the dough should pull away from the bowl in a single elastic sheet.
- The cold rest is not optionalFour hours in the "ice box" plus a further hour after a knock-back firms the butter and lets flavour develop. A refrigerator at 38-40F does this, and cold dough makes a paste this rich far easier to shape.
- YieldAbout 1 3/4 lb of dough, enough for one large fluted brioche à tête, two small loaf pans, or roughly a dozen individual brioches.
- Baking, since the recipe gives noneAfter shaping, proof until nearly doubled, egg-wash, and bake small brioches at 400F for 15-18 minutes, a loaf at 375F for 30-35 minutes to an internal temperature near 190F.
Brioche is the great enriched dough of French baking, and the version here, with five eggs and a third of its flour weight in butter, sits at the rich end of the professional range rather than the plain everyday brioche de ménage. The recipe begins by letting a small ball of dough rise in water, so that its floating to the surface gives the baker a visible signal of readiness. The name is usually traced to the Norman verb brier, an old form of broyer, meaning to pound or knead, though the etymology is traditional rather than settled; the same word carries the famous line attributed to Marie Antoinette, which in French is about brioche and not cake.