Home › Cakes, Puddings, and Pastry › Brioches

Brioches

When Marie Antoinette was told that the people were starving for bread, she said, "Give them brioches !" These are a troublesome but dainty cake, popular all over France.

Sift 1/2 pound flour, and mix half of it with 1/4 ounce Vienna yeast and water to make a paste. Knead it, and put in a large bowl of warm water near the fire. Mix the rest of the flour with 1/4 ounce sugar, a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of water, 1/4 pound butter, and 2 eggs. Beat all for a while, adding the eggs one by one. Then throw the dough on a table six times, to make it light, take out the ball of paste, now floating on the water, and roll both together several times. Put to rise for 2 hours in a cold place. Then bake it 40 minutes, egging the top to glaze it, in a hot oven. Turn out and dust with sugar.