Easy Brioche

This French sweet bread is super easy if you prepare the dough the night before.

I always loved the idea of waking up to freshly baked bread in the mornings. Back in the days, when I had a bread baking machine (horrible! Bad idea, unless you like your bread with some kind of weird whole right through the middle. It smelled nice though.) I would always prepare everything on Sunday evening, put the timer of the machine on 4am and on Monday mornings, I would wake up to the smell of fresh bread. There are worse ways to start the week…

But I don’t have a bread machine any more and I’m quite happy about that. Bread that you made with your own hands and fingers and sweat and tears and whatever (sorry for the imagery) tastes so much better! Also, it has a better shape and doesn’t come with a whole in the middle. Unless you’re making Bagels of course.

So, on to the brioche. I love brioche. It’s soft and slightly sweet and it goes perfectly with Nutella or berry jam. Yum! I always thought it would be really hard to bake but actually, it’s fairly easy. You just have to remember that baking bread needs a little bit of extra time because it has to prove and rise.

Easy Brioche
makes 1 brioche

• 300g plain flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 50g caster sugar (I used golden caster sugar because I didn’t have any white one)
• 4 eggs
• 170g unsalted butter (I used vegan spread)
• 2 sachets dried yeast (14g)
• 1 tsp lemon juice for the glazing
• 50g icing sugar for the glazing

Put the flour, salt, sugar, eggs and the softened butter into a big bowl. Dissolve the yeast in 1tsp of tepid water. Pour the dissolved yeast into the bowl, but don’t let it touch the salt yet. Salt destroys the structure of the yeast and will prevent your dough from rising properly.
Now mix the dough and leave it in the bowl. Cover it and leave it to prove overnight (or for roughly 6 hours).

The next day, your dough will be slightly runny and not very nice looking. Don’t worry. It’s normal. Roll the dough on a floured surface and fold in the flour. Repeat this once. Shape a loaf and put it in a buttered bread tin.

Leave to rise for around 30mins (until the top of the dough reaches the top of the tin).
Preheat the oven to 150°C and bake the brioche for around 20-25 minutes.

For the glaze, mix the lemon juice with the icing sugar and brush it on the surface of the brioche. I pierced the surface a few times so that the glaze would seep inside. Highly recommended! :)

The brioche is best when completely cooled. I found it even tastier the next day, but I doubt that you can wait that long!

Enjoy, Becca x