Bread Round 2: The Brioche

Ah the Brioche... Enriched breads for an enriched life so they say. In fact, Marie Antoinette's famous proclamation "let them eat cake"! was a rough translation from the french phrase: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" Largely considered the bread of the upper class throughout history, brioche is often rich, soft and buttery compared to its rustic loaf brothers.

Artisan Brioche

the perfect buttery golden sandwich rolls

Recipe:

Makes: 6 LARGE rolls or 8 medium sized

Ingredients:

1.5 cups of lukewarm water
1 tablespoon (.35 ounce) granulated yeast
1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons (.6 to .9 ounce) kosher or other coarse salt, to taste
8 large eggs at room temperature, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1.5 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
7.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, measured by the scoop-and-sweep method
1 tablespoon smoked sea salt flakes (for the topping of bread)

Instructions:

Mix the yeast, salt, eggs honey and melted butter with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.
Mix in the flour, using a spoon until all of the flour is incorporated.
Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours. Note: Don't let this dough sit out longer than 2 hours as it has raw egg in it.
After 2 hours chill dough in refrigerator for a minimum of 3 hours before shaping into bread.
Once chilled, remove half the dough (keep the other half for another recipe or batch)
dust some parchment paper with flour and form an oval, being careful not to let the air out of the dough.
cut the oval into 6-8 even size pieces depending on how large you want your rolls to be.
Take each piece and quickly shape into a small round bun. Repeat until all 6 are this way. Let these rise for 20 min.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Brush the tops of the rolls with an eggwash (a whisked egg mixed with a small amount of water)
Place the parchment paper with rolls on a stoneware baking sheet. and put in oven for 30 minutes or until the tops of the rolls are a nice golden brown.
Remove rolls from oven and place on a wire baking rack to cool.

Notes:

This dough is meant to be wet, so it will stick to your fingers a bit, don't fight it. Wet your hands a bit if you need to and you shouldn't have a problem.