Sourdough Brioche bread

Name: Sourdough brioche bread
Ingredients: 450 gram Wheat flour (with 11.5% protein content.); 4 eggs (medium size); 150 gram sourdough starter (100% hydration); 60 gram whole milk; 375 gram unsalted butter; 30 gram sugar; 15 gram sea salt; 1 egg (for brushing)

April 9, 2019 51 Comments

SOURDOUGH BRIOCHE BREAD, THE KING OF SOURDOUGH BREAD?

Perhaps not, but Brioche bread has almost an iconic status. It is sometimes called the tastiest bread in the world. Now, I am sure there are those who disagree with this.
But I have to say that I find it hard to imagine anything better than a slice of toasted Brioche bread for breakfast a Saturday morning. Or why not as a starter with Tapenade.
The soft crumb with a rich taste of butter is insanely tasty.

Brioche is a classic French bread with lots of egg and butter, and it can almost be classified as a pastry.
It should have a rich and tender crumb with a dark golden and flaky crust.
The taste of butter should be profound without leaving a greasy feeling in the mouth.

Brioche is not the best bread for beginners, not even with yeast. Baking with a sourdough starter, it becomes a real challenge.
So that’s what we are going to do. Baking a sourdough Brioche bread. Hey, challenges are fun, aren’t they?

Most of the time I don’t use a dough mixer, but I was considering using it for this recipe. Mixing all that butter into the dough is not easy.
But in the end, I decided to do it by hand. Not everybody has a dough mixer, and I wanted to give it a try.

ABOUT FLOUR AND SOURDOUGH STARTER

For this recipe, I used 525-gram wheat flour (starter included) with 11.5% protein content.
The sourdough starter contains wheat flour only and has a hydration of 100%. I took out the starter from the refrigerator 8 hours before it was time to bake and fed it.

MIXING THE DOUGH

I mixed the flour, milk, egg, sourdough starter, sugar, and salt and let the dough rest for an hour. After that, I performed a set of stretch and folds and let the dough rest for an additional hour.
I wanted the dough to develop lots of gluten before I added the butter, so I continued to perform stretch and folds until the dough passed the windowpane test.

I took out the butter from the fridge, half an hour before it was time to add it to the dough. Some say the butter should be cold and some say it should be room tempered, so I chose something in between.
Adding butter to a dough by hand is not easy, but it is possible.
My method was to add some small pieces, grip the dough with my hand, and pinch it with my fingers. I continued until I couldn’t feel any lumps of butter. After that, I added some more butter and repeat until all butter was incorporated into the dough.

BULK FERMENTATION

I placed the dough in my basement to ferment for 16 hours until it had increased by 30% in volume. My basement keeps a temperature of 56ºF/13ºC at this time of the year.
I’m aware that not everybody has this opportunity, so an alternative is to let the dough ferment at room temperature, not above 77ºF/25ºC, until it has increased by 30-50%, and then place it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
You want the dough to harden all the way through before it’s time to shape the loaf.

SHAPING

There are many ways to shape a sourdough brioche bread, but I decided to make one big loaf.
So I divided the dough into four pieces of equal size and formed them into rounds. Try to shape the dough while it is cold. Otherwise, the butter can start to melt, making the dough sticky.

The balls were squeezed into a bread tin greased with melted butter.
Don’t skimp with butter when greasing the bread tin. I did that the first time, as I thought there was so much butter in the dough anyhow and was punished with a bread that got stuck in the form.

Unfortunately, I mauled it a bit when I tried to get it out. For the second try, I greased the tin with a lot of butter, and the bread came out without any problems.

PROOFING

For the final rise, I used my basement again where I let the loaf proof for 24 hours. You can, of course, shorten the time by letting the bread ferment at room temperature instead.

Try to let the loaf double in size, but don’t despair if it’s not. My first loaf only rose about 60-75%, but I still got a very nice oven spring as shown in the pictures. I let the second loaf proof at room temperature, and it doubled in size after 12 hours.

I brushed the bread with a beaten egg and a pinch of salt.
Don’t brush too much. If The Egg mixture flows down between the dough and the bread tin, your Brioche will stick after baking.
I think that can be another reason why I had such problems getting my first Brioche out of the bread tin.

BAKING

Preheat the oven to 420ºF/215ºC. One big loaf requires about one hour in the oven. I had to cover it with aluminum foil, in the end, to prevent it from getting burned on the surface. I also reduced the heat to 395ºF/200ºC.
It’s important that the inner temperature reaches about 208ºF/98ºC.
If you take it out too early, it may collapse a bit.
When it’s ready, take it out from the oven and remove it from the bread form as soon as it is cool enough to handle.

CONCLUSION

What struck me most with this sourdough brioche bread was the long fermentation times, even at room temperature.
I suppose it has to do with the dough. It’s quite stiff, and even if I know that stiffer doughs ferment slower, I didn’t think it would take that long.
The taste, however, met all my expectations. A soft, yellow crumb with a rich taste of butter, slightly acidic, that was surrounded by a golden brown and flaky crust.
This is not a healthy bread. But most things that taste insanely good are not healthy, and this bread is just too delicious to abstain from.
But perhaps it’s not advisable to eat it every day.