18 COOK’S COUNTRY • AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019
BRIOCHE, THE CLASSIC French
bread enriched with plenty of butter
and eggs, is perfect as a hamburger
bun, dinner roll, or sandwich bread. Its
paper-thin, amber crust; dairy-sweet
fl avor; impossibly soft interior; and
buttery aroma make it the gold stan-
dard in bread, no matter the format. I
wanted to achieve this
standard by employ-
ing a straightforward
method that even nov-
ice bakers could use
to make brioche buns,
rolls, or loaves.
I started with buns.
Hamburger buns are
usually made from a
lean sandwich bread
dough; I found a
recipe for 12 buns
that called for just one
egg and a little butter.
The buns get their
structure from knead-
ing in a stand mixer
for about 5 min-
utes—the kneading
realigns the strands of
gluten in the dough, creating a strong
framework that supports the buns as
they rise and bake. This also develops
the buns’ chew.
Brioche is made a bit diff erently.
Since brioche dough has more eggs
and lots more butter than sandwich
bread dough does, it has a signifi cantly
higher ratio of fat to fl our. Fat shortens
gluten strands, inhibiting their forma-
tion, so the butter is kneaded into the
dough gradually (1 tablespoon at a
time) while the mixer is running so
the gluten has enough time to develop
between additions. Once the butter is
fully incorporated, the dough must be
kneaded for a long time to suffi ciently
develop its structure.
Some brioche recipes call for a full
45 minutes of extra kneading in the
stand mixer, but I had a few tricks up
my sleeve that I hoped would help
minimize the kneading time. The fi rst
trick was to use bread fl our instead of
all-purpose fl our. Because bread fl our
has more protein than all-purpose
fl our does, it more readily develops
gluten, which I needed here due to all
the fat in the dough. The second trick
was a power nap. Let me explain.
With 3½ cups of bread fl our and a
full tablespoon of yeast in the mixer
bowl (this dough required more than
one packet of yeast—usually 2¼ tea-
spoons—to help it rise under the
weight of all that
fat), I mixed in water
and eggs until a
dough formed. I then
stopped the mixer
and let the dough sit
before adding the
sugar, salt, and butter.
This resting time,
known as autolyse,
allowed the fl our to
fully hydrate, a neces-
sary step for gluten
formation. Both sugar
and salt slow hydra-
tion, so withholding
them for a bit helped
the fl our better
absorb the liquid and
thus promoted gluten
development.
Now for the butter. Softened butter
incorporated into the dough more
easily than cold butter did; I found
that 13 tablespoons was just enough to
give the brioche a rich, buttery fl avor
while still keeping the texture light
and airy. After 10 minutes of knead-
ing, the dough was silky, supple, and
elastic. It was ready to rise.
After the dough had risen for an
hour on the counter, it was time to
shape it into buns. I found that simply
cupping and rolling each portion of
dough against the counter pulled it
into a taut ball. I then fl attened each
ball with the bottom of a dry measur-
ing cup so it would bake up into the
perfect bun shape.
The silky, fl uff y, feather-light
chew of these burger buns was sturdy
enough to hold up to a meaty, juicy
burger without crumbling or sogging
out. What’s more, the versatile dough
proved easy to shape into a pair of
loaves (great for morning toast) or a
big batch of dinner rolls. Choose your
own baking adventure!One simple dough, three perfect uses.
by Cecelia Jenkins
Butter Makes
It Better
Brioche owes its rich-
ness to eggs and a hefty
amount of butter in the
dough. With all that extra
fat, many brioche recipes
(including ours) call for
high-protein bread fl our,
which creates more glu-
ten than all-purpose fl our
and thus builds extra
structure to support the
heavy fat. (All-purpose
fl our will work here, but
the brioche won’t stand
quite as tall.)