yummeelicious

After a glorious weekend in Paris, I am now obsessed with all things French. Well ok, not all things, just their ability to make bread and pastries. I found myself wandering around Paris for a day on my own and I just hopped on and off the Metro to get from one pattiserie to the other. Since coming home, I am on a mission to recreate some of the delights which I sampled while there and first up is a brioche.

Brioche is a wonderfully enriched sweet bread, which is crumbly and soft, almost cake-like, and just fantastic with lashings of butter. There are numerous variations on the recipe, with eight recipes in my french baking recipe book alone. Having 8 to choose from was daunting enough that I avoided the internet in case my head actually spun.

In the interest of simplicity I went with a classic brioche recipe for my first attempt. I decided if I could perfect this then I could work on mixing things up a bit.

All you need are the following simple ingredients:

1 sachet of dried yeast, 2Tbsp warm milk, 100g soft butter, 250g plain flour, 3 eggs (plus one for eggwash), 1 tsp salt and 50g caster sugar

 First off, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk to activate it.

Place the flour in a large bowl (or the bowl of your mixer if using one) and make a well in the middle.

Place all other ingredients into the well, ensuring that you dont place the salt directly on top of your yeast amd milk mixture.

Combine the ingredients with a wooden spoon and then work the dough for 5 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook or by hand for 10 minutes.

You should have a nice glossy and elastic dough to mould.

When I was in Paris wandering around salivating at all the boulangerie the Brioche where all fancy and baked in flutes tins. However, if like me you havent gotten around to buying absolutely every shaped tin imaginable, then any tin will do. I decided on a loaf tin for mine as its easier to slice (and eat) but if you were making this for an occasion other than a Monday morning breakfast, you can place in a 8in round cake tin and using a floured wodden spoon handle, depress the centre of the dough to give a hollowed round shape. Alternatively divide the dough into muffin tins or mini loaf cases for cute single portions.

After placing your dough in your selected buttered tin, cover loosely with oiled cling film and leave in a warm place to prove for 2-3 hours. Once proved, give the dough a generous eggwash and place in the oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. Your brioche will be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped underneath.

Et Voila! Brioche!

Brioche is lovely on its own but my favourite is to toast it and then add lashings and lashings of butter. The boys like theirs with jam. On day 2 when your loaf is not as fresh, Pain Perdu with chopped banana makes an amazing post swimming snack for the little ones.

Week 2 of Great Irish Bake Off involved yeast again! But after last week’s Rum Babas I wasn’t as nervous. I can’t say I have ever made alot of bread though. I made a brown soda loaf a couple of months ago which ‘ turn out the best so this was not going to go without a hitch.

With little bread making experience all I could do was trust the recipe and get cracking. My first attempt took 2 hours for the prove, then the dough was wet and the strands of the plait morphed into each other so although the bread was definitely edible, calling it a plait would have been breach of the Trades Description Act (see below). Also the crust was way too soft, and the “pinch” of salt in the eggwash (my hand slipped a little) made the whole loaf very salty. Attempt one not what you would call a success.

My other half likes to make bread on occasion and is a fan of the No-Knead technique so I decided to give that a go and see how it would work out plaited. This was much better than my first attempt. The dough was wetter but I had a well floured surface when rolling out and plaiting so at least I ended up with a plait this time. It turned out quite well and taste wise it had a lovely crust, helped by the pan of hot water I placed in the bottom of the oven while baking. The plait wasn’t awful either if a little on the skinny side. Obviously one end looks more plait-like than the others but all in all I was happy with it.

I was ready to use this second attempt as my entry for #GIirshBO week 2, but at the last minute I decided to have another go at the standard recipe and see how it went. I held back a little when adding the water and had it tepid rather than cold to help the proving along. I mentioned this to the husband who commented something like “Ahh, microbiology” in a knowing tone. He has a short memory, because were it not for him distracting me from nearly every microbiology lecture in the second year of my degree, I could have been a master bread baker! Reminiscing of my younger days aside, I attempted my plait. Lots of flour to stop the strands sticking to each other. It wasn’t totally even but it was definitely another step in the right direction.

What I end up with was a definite central plait with the woven sides, a decently defined underneath and an even enough bake. I was happier with the look than with either of the other two loaves so used this as my entry. In my week-long crash course I couldn’t figure out how to get the strands all the same size no matter how I tried.

In terms of taste I think I would still go with the No-Knead technique as it gives the bread a distinctive taste you don’t get with the regular technique.

Another week of #GIrishBO and again I have learned quite alot. Bread baking not quite so scary, not as time consuming as I had imagined and well worth the little bit of effort, even if plaiting is totally unnecessary for everyday consumption. Homemade bread might become the norm around here now.

The Final Product

I generally like to make large cakes but every now and again I get an idea in my head to make scones or cinnamon buns and this week I decided to make Hot Cross Buns. I had seen a number of people on twitter commenting on the recipe in the April issue of @deliciousmag and they all said it was easy and their photos where yummee so I decided to give it a go. My mam loves them and I knew it was the type of thing I could send home with her and they would be eaten because only me and the 2 little men here will eat them (Himself is a paleo fan).

So I picked up a copy of the magazine with my grocery shopping on the Saturday morning and got stuck in after lunch. Now I have to say that I don’t do much with yeast. The odd batch of cinnamon buns but that’s about it. So as usual I got stuck in with great enthusiasm at trying something new. I followed the recipe closely and set my dough to rise. For all the giving out I do about the larger than normal espresso machine in my kitchen (belonging to www.otherblackstuff.ie) it is a great place to leave your dough to rise, as the heat from the machine is just enough to get it going.

After 45 minutes (which was the upper end of the time stated in the recipe) there wasn’t a huge amount of rise but I thought well maybe that’s all it needs. My inexperience with dough is glaringly obvious now, you would never think I was a chemist by training. Anyway, I proceeded to divide the dough up into 16 buns as directed and left them to rise for an hour with not much happening again! So anyway, “In for a penny, in for a pound”, I made my mix for the crosses and decorated them and put them in the oven. What transpired was what could only be described as Hot ROCK Buns. They were awful looking, weighed a ton and even my 3.5 year old who would eat anything I bake wouldn’t eat them. So I took a couple of photos and decided to call it a night on the baking. A thought struck me then and I checked the expiry on the dried yeast I had used. August 2011!!! Well that explained alot!

The Awful First Attempt

Sunday morning, up at 6.15 and decided that I wouldn’t be beaten by a few buns and I would try again, with different yeast, in date until 2013. Unfortunately, no rising again. Nothing, not a centimetre! No idea what went wrong this time. Himself suggested pouring some warm water over the dough and actually this did make a difference but it wasn’t working at any significant rate. So I gave up! I was defeated!

I couldn’t rest though. I had promised my 3.5 year old hot cross buns so I was going to do it. So I headed to the supermarket, bought some new dried yeast, unopened and in date and this was going to work!!!!

I followed the recipe again, it obviously worked judging by the number of tweets I’d seen about how great it was. Whilst putting all the ingredients into my standmixer bowl I realised I had forgotten the butter the last time too! (It still should have risen!) So with all the ingredients in the mixer with the dough hook I watched as the dough formed into a prefect ball in about 2 minutes. This already looked the best of the 3 attempts. I put in the dried fruit and zest and placed it on top of the espresso machine as before, this time with a little pep talk to encourage it to work, of course. In 40 minutes, the bowl was almost full!! I did a little dance around the kitchen. Who would have thought I would get so excited about some uncooked dough??

The Risen Dough

I divided it up into 16 buns with a little help from my little kitchen helper enjoying getting his hands sticky. Another 30 minutes on the espresso machine and they were lovely and plump and ready to be “crossed”. I was go excited about them having risen that my piping was a bit messy. 15 minutes in the oven and finally after over 24 hours, I finally had 16 golden brown Hot Cross Buns. A final sugar and spice glaze and they were ready for lashings of butter.

Just out of the oven - yummee

Alot more work than I had anticipated but in the end they were worth it and very yummeelicious!