Brioche

Knowing that I am soon going to be working as a baker got me all excited - so I whipped open my favorite bread book and found a recipe that I hadn't tried before. 

Brioche, pronounced bree -osh, is a sweet bread made with eggs and butter. And it's heavenly. 

Traditionally it is baked in fluted pans, but as I didn't have any I went with a fancy way of forming bread that I thought would turn out well - braids. And it was a success!  

Brioche 

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day 

Makes 2 loaves - you can easily halve or double this recipe. 

3/4 cups warm water 

3/4 Tbsp yeast (1 packet) 

3/4 Tbsp salt 

4 eggs, beaten 

1/4 cup honey 

3/4 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

3 3/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour 

Egg wash (1 beaten egg + 1 Tbsp water) 

Mix together the water, yeast, salt, eggs, honey and melted butter in a bowl. Then mix in the flour without kneading (or use a stand mixer with a dough hook). Cover and leave to rise for 2 hours in a warm place. Then chill the dough in the refrigerator for anywhere between 3 hour to 5 days. (Beyond 5 days you can freeze the dough to use later). 

When you are ready to bake dust a surface generously with flour, and then divide this dough into six even apple-sized pieces.  

Flour your hands and roll the dough into long cylinders. 

If they don't cooperate set the dough down and let it rest for 5 minutes, and try again. 

Once you have three strands of dough, you can braid! 

Here's a trick I learned - start in the middle and braid toward the ends. 

Then flip the dough over - and continue braiding to the other end. 

Then you have a beautifully braided dough loaf waiting to become bread. Repeat. 

Place them on a cookie sheet or pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal and leave to rest for an hour. 

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Right before baking brush the dough with an egg wash or - if you are like me and ran out of eggs - a little rice milk will do. 

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, and soon your kitchen will be filled with glory. 

Oh. My. Goodness. 

Eat as soon as its cool enough - alone, with coffee or tea, with honey drizzled on top - it's incredible! 

Garlic Rosemary Bread

This is how I survived Winter Quarter 2011: 

Baking bread has become my recharge and my stress reliever. 

And as is usual at the end of a quarter or semester of school, it's time to take all those things you may (or may not) have learned and compile them together to create something original and comprehensive; something that demonstrates the understandings you have gained from you class time, reading, homework and projects. 

I figured I have the basics of bread making down, and the ratios of liquid to flour to yeast down, so I decided it was time to venture out on my own and demonstrate all the bread making skills I have attained... sort of. 

Actually, I just thought that adding garlic and rosemary to the Olive Oil Dough recipe would be uhh-mazing.

And it was. 

What I'm trying to say is that I took this loaf for snack time during my Mountaineers class... and the bread received a few compliments. Actually, a lot of compliments. And it was devoured.

 I think that means I earned an "A."

(Forgive me for being a blogging Trader Joe's advertisement sometimes.)

Garlic Rosemary Bread Ingredients 

2 3/4 cups lukewarm water 

1 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast 

1 1/2 Tbsp salt 

1 Tbsp sugar 

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 

2 tsp rosemary 

2 tsp garlic powder 

6 1/2 cups unbleached flour (feel free to use up to half whole wheat) 

Add the yeast, salt, sugar, rosemary, garlic powder and olive oil to the bowl and pour in the water. Mix gently and then add all the flour, mixing well with a wooden spoon until even.

Let rise for 2 hours, then use right away or you can store it for up to 10 days in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to bake, shape the bread as desired. Since I recently discovered the joys of braided bread, I made more braided loaves. Let them warm up for 40 minutes on a well floured pizza peel and pre-heat the oven and the baking stone to 500 F. Or use a bread pan.

Decrease the temperature to 450 F and bake for 30 minutes. Place an old pie-tin with boiling water on another rack to create steam.

Let them cool and admire your handiwork. 

Breathe deeply because now you can reap the benefits of your labors. 

Braided Loaves

I was chatting with my friend Melissa about bread the other day (food is perhaps our favorite topic of conversation) and I was telling her about my struggles with slashing and the tearing on some of my loaves. She suggested that I try making braided loaves instead, which was SUPER EASY, a lot of fun, and they turned out beautifully! 

As Melissa put it, you just "string-roll sections of the dough into long pieces and then braid and knot them together as you wish. Be creative... sometimes they don't turn out but the sky is the limit."

It's just like how you roll out the dough for pretzels, but I kept them thicker. 

This one used 4 rolls of dough from the spinach feta recipe. 

And this dough from the honey whole wheat I rolled into three strands and braided it just like you would braid your hair. 

Bake them according to the recipe. Aren't they cool?!? They look very complicated and impressive... but are so simple. Use this for potlucks and show off your skills!

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Today, March 5th, is our 6th month anniversary! 

It's crazy to think our wedding was 6 months ago. 

We're celebrating by taking an avalanche course at Mt Baker; actually, the field trip just happened to to fall on the same day; but going up into the mountains is appropriate for the day. This is part of our Basic Climbing Course with the Mountaineers. Maybe we'll do something special on Sunday... or perhaps I will do a whole lot of homework as my finals are next week. =(