Belgian Brioche and beyond

After chatting with my sister in Australia,  I came off the line, and decided it was high time to use one of my new toys, and make up some brioches for the weekend.  Lizzie had bought me 12 individual brioche tins only a few weeks ago, and this was their first use.  This was such a lovely and generous gift.  I had first asked her to look for some for me when she went over to France, but in the end she got them from Lakeland.  I used the Brioche Recipe from the Hairy Bikers Book: Belgian Brioche (Craquelin)....but I had no oranges or orange liqueur.  I then remembered the bottle of Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste which Penny had brought for me, and the unopened bottle of Mauritian Vanilla scented Rhum, which I have had for about five years in the cupboard!  Therefore instead of orange, I added Vanilla, and soaked the sugar cubes in the rhum.

I carefully weighed each piece of dough, and had 12 buns rising in the tins.

As the mixture already has four eggs, I was a little bit miserly and decided not to brush them with yet another egg yolk.  I will definitely not miss this out ever again, as without the sheen they are not quite the same.  The shape though is very pretty and I am hoping to have many years of using this little tins.  They are dark and heavy and just a light brushing of oil, the brioches tipped out easily, even though some of them had leaked some of their sugary filling.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow morning's breakfast.  I shall warm the brioches up and have a couple with a large cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee!  They rest are already frozen, ready for another weekend.

Belgian Brioche Craquelin

Another fabulous recipe from The hairy Bikers' big book of Baking...

Friday was a day of rain...we are having so many of them this year.  The best thing to beat the rain blues is a spot of baking.  This is the first time I've baked brioches, and this recipe with the twist of something sugary in the middle was really appealing.  I had been hesitating about baking brioches before as I do not have the fluted brioche tins, and did not feel that I could justify the cost about £26.00 for 12 tins!!!

It takes quite some effort and time to work with the sticky dough and gradually add the butter, I used goat's butter, and goat's milk and its best to avoid answering the phone and the front door too! 

After the dough had risen I soaked the sugar cubes in orange juice.  Next time I would use more orange peel and just a little liqueur to flavour the cubes as I over soaked the cubes trying to get in as much flavour as possible, and this was a little too damp and leaked out of three of the brioches.

I decided to use some 'muffin' tins, and also some dariole tins. The ones in the dariole tins stuck on the bottom, so would need to use some parchment paper to avoid this. I've scaled down the recipe for next time to 3 eggs, so that the six large and six smaller muffins tins will be just right.  The picture above is taken just before they had their last prove under their polythene tent. 

The smell whilst kneading the dough right through to baking was heavenly.  My friend Penny arrived just about when the brioche went into the oven, she had called earlier when my hands were covered with dough.  We sat down and enjoyed coffee chatting with the background noise of rain in the conservatory. 

They are delicious warm and Penny did not hesitate when offered one to taste.  We warmed up four gently for breakfast the next morning.  The crusts are buttery and flaky and the centres soft and delicious.  Four came out of the freezer for Sunday Breakfast, and warmed up very well.  Four more left for another special breakfast!