An Old Classic Revisited: Brioches

A few months ago, a friend of mine remarked that "your brioche recipe is still a staple in our household". I gave her a puzzled look. My brioche recipe?! The it dawned on me. Right. THAT brioche recipe! I used to bake it so, so often in my teenage and student years. If I remember correctly, I copied it from one of the first sachets of dried yeast I (or my Mum, more likely) ever purchased when it became available in supermarkets in Austria in the late 1980s. It is super easy to make and was a firm favourite among my friends. So much so that some of them asked for the recipe. Somehow, I had completely forgotten about it and last baked these wonderful fluffy, lemony brioches a good 20 years (!) ago until recently when I found some dried yeast that I wanted to use up, and remembered this well-loved classic. If you want to try it yourself, here goes:

Brioches 

(makes 20-30, depending on how large you want them)

Ingredients

400g flour

a pinch of salt

180 ml milk

90g sugar (some of which is vanilla sugar)

100 g butter

2 egg yolks

zest of one organic lemon

1 sachet (21g) dried yeast

Pearl sugar (optional)

Method

Put flour, salt, sugar, lemon zest and dried yeast into a mixing bowl. Heat milk and butter to 37° approx and add this mix as well as one egg yolk to the rest, mixing and kneading it into a supple dough. Form into a ball and leave to rise (covered) at a warm place for about 30 minutes. Knead the dough again and roll out onto a floured surface, cutting out triangles, then rolling these into "croissants" Mix the remaining egg yolk with some milk and brush this mix onto your brioches, sprinkling pear sugar on top. Leave to rest for another 30 mins, then bake in a preheated oven (180°, fan setting) for approx 15 minutes, depending on the size of your brioches.

Since these are not overly sweet, they also taste very nice with jam (I prefer apricot or raspberry myself ) for breakfast.