Brioche Bun

Brioche Bun

Ingredients

Serves: 20 

• 350 g (2 ¾ cups) plain flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 100 g (1/3 cup) butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 80 ml (1/3 cup) lukewarm milk
• 1 teaspoon (5g) dry yeast
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg yolk, for brushing

Directions

Preparation:3hours35min  ›  Cook:15min  ›  Ready in:3hours50min 

1. Grease a baking tray.
2. To make the dough, place the flour, salt and butter in a bowl. Place milk in a jug and sprinkle yeast over to dissolve. Whisk in the eggs and sugar; add to the flour mixture. Knead for 5 minutes ; dough should no longer stick to the side of the bowl. (This dough is wet and sticky; an electric mixer makes the task of kneading much easier than if you try to work with your hands.)
3. Cover dough and leave to rise in a cool place for 2 hours; it must not get too warm. Knead for a further 5 minutes. Cover; leave to rise for 30–50 minutes until doubled in size.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and shape into a cylinder. Slice into 25 pieces. Shape 20 pieces into balls and press them into the tins.
5. Using an index finger, make a deep hole in the centre of each of the 20 balls. Cut each remaining piece of dough into 4; shape into small balls. Pull a pointed cone of dough up from each one and push the point deep into the holes made in the large dough balls.
6. Preheat oven to 220°C.
7. Beat egg yolk with 2 tbsp water and brush over the brioches. Cover and leave for 30 minutes until doubled in size.
8. Bake brioches for 15–20 minutes until golden; they should slip out of the tins easily.

Top Tip

If the eggs are large, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk will be sufficient; other-wise the dough will be too liquid.

Try this, too…

For a Brioche Loaf, prepare dough as for the main recipe. Grease a 26-cm (10 1/2-in) long loaf tin and place dough in it. Let dough rise; brush with egg yolk mixture. Make several diagonal incisions in the top with a sharp knife. Bake loaf for 25–30 minutes until golden.