Sunday brunch – homemade brioche

We had freshly baked brioche for brunch this morning. It was melt-in-the-mouth delicious, and very, very light. I made the dough yesterday, so all I had to do was pop it in the oven when I got up.

Brioche

I used Paul Hollywood’s recipe from ‘how to bake’. It is seriously good. I’ve made a few recipes from the book now, and all have worked perfectly and taste great.

You will need:

500g strong, white flour

7g of salt

50g of castor sugar

10g of instant yeast

140ml of warm, full fat milk

5 medium eggs

250g of soft, unsalted butter

Get your mixer out, and add the flour to the bowl. Put the salt and sugar to one side and the yeast to the other. Pour in the milk and the eggs, and mix on a slow setting for about two minutes. Turn up the power to medium and mix at this speed for another 6-8 minutes, until your dough is elastic and soft.

Cut your butter up into squares and add this to the dough, mixing it well for about another five minutes. Stop the mixer every now and again to scrape down the sides. Make sure that the butter is well mixed though. Your dough should be smooth and very soft. I’ve been trying to think of what the texture is like. This was my first time making a rich dough. All I can think of is, it reminds me of soft butter. The colour and smell were divine, and the texture was very soft.

Tip the dough into a plastic container. I’m usually quite open to interpreting recipes (sometimes very liberally), but the recipe says a plastic container, so I followed it to the letter. I don’t know if you could keep it in the mixing bowl and get the same results (mine is metal). If you know better than I do, let me know in the comments below! Cover the dish and chill it for at least seven hours.

After the seven hours, the dough had metamorphasised. The squishy dough had firmed up significantly and it was much easier to manipulate.

You’ll need to grease a 25cm round tin at this stage. It doesn’t need to be lined.

Flour your work surface and tip your dough out onto it. Fold it over onto itself a couple of times to knock some of the air out. Divide it into nine similar-sized pieces. Eight of these can go around the edge of your tin, and the ninth goes into the centre.

Balls of brioche, ready to prove

Cover this with a clean plastic bag or clingfilm and leave it to prove for another 2-3 hours. I did all of this on Saturday afternoon and left the dough to prove overnight in my kitchen. Your dough should rise again.

When you’re ready to bake, heat your oven to 190°c. Bake your dough for 20-30 minutes – mine took about 35 minutes. When it’s done, put it on a wire rack to cool for a bit. We ate ours still warm from the oven with raspberry jam.

Baked brioche

Paul Hollywood’s flatbreads – a fairly quick and very easy snack

If you have an hour or so to spare and fancy something hot and satisfying for lunch, give these flatbreads a go! I made them with a little Roquefort and fig jam in the centre.

This recipe is from Paul Hollywood’s ‘How to bake’.

Paul Hollywood's flatbread with a poached egg 

500g strong flour (I used Soubry farine pour pain blanc)

10g salt

10g instant yeast

30g unsalted butter

310ml water

Make the dough my mixing the flour, salt, yeast and softened butter in a large bowl. Add most of the water (I didn’t follow the recipe, and used warm water instead of the stated cool) and mix to a dough. If you need to add more water, do so little by little, until all the flour is combined.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it for about 10 minutes, until it’s soft and smooth.  Lightly oil your bowl and put the dough in it, cover with cling film and leave somewhere warm for it to rise, which should take an hour or so (you can also leave it overnight).

Once more, tip the dough onto your floured surface and fold it repeatedly until the air is knocked out. Divide the dough into 12 pieces.  

I flattened them out a rough circle and put about 10-15g of Roquefort in the centre along with a half-teaspoon of fig jam. Fold the edges of the circle in towards the centre and seal them so that none of the filling can get out. Flatten them slightly and put them onto a hot frying pan. I cooked them without oil. I also pressed them down a little more with a fish slice once they were in the pan, and got them about 10cm wide (Mr H gets his flatbreads 18cm wide using a rolling pin - before putting them in the frying pan of course). They only take a couple of minutes to cook on each side, so when the first side is done, flip them over. Serve them hot from the pan – lovely with a Belgian beer.

I've since made these with gruyere and lardons; mushrooms; leerdammer and ham; leftover curry and a sweet version, with a large square of milk chocolate inside. I also made them for brunch with a poached egg on top. A friend also tried full-fat mozzarella  which she reported was "yum". I was wondering if you could make them like a stuffed pizza, by using a teaspoon of tomato sauce, mozzarella and whatever you like on your pizza. 

How about you? Have you tried them? What are your favourite fillings? 

American-style pancakes

American style pancakes 

I’ve been making a few of Felicity Cloakes “the perfect” recipes recently (like the chocolate chip cookies). I’m always looking for new brunch recipes, so these immediately piqued my interest. We didn’t have any maple syrup, although I think I’ve seen it in the Carrefours around Waterloo and in the British shop. We ate them with honey and jam. The pancakes were light and fluffy, with a good taste and colour.

45g melted butter

115g flour

115 cornmeal (‘farine de mais’ in French. I didn’t have any in my kitchen and wasn’t looking for it when I was doing the shopping, so I used polenta instead and they turned out great)

a pinch of salt

2 tablespoons of caster sugar

½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

1 egg

300ml buttermilk (see here for more info on the science behind buttermilk)

100ml full fat milk

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a jug, mix two tablespoons of the melted butter plus all the other wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, stirring to combine as you add them.

American style pancake batter

In a heavy pan, add a little of the leftover melted butter and heat to a medium heat.

Drop large spoonfuls of the mixture of the mixture into the hot pan and cook for about two or three minutes on the first side and another minute on the reverse side. You know the first side is done when holes appear on the raw side of the pancake. I was able to get three pancakes onto the pan. Repeat for the rest of the mixture. I got about 12 pancakes from this amount of mixture.

Bagels

I’ve found these to be quite difficult to find in your average supermarket here, but they are becoming more popular in cafes, Karsmakers just off Pl Luxembourg for one. You can also buy them off the Internet Grocer or Stonemanor in Waterloo (it's the only one I've been to. They have a great selection of flavours too). 

They are also very easy to make at home. Make the dough the night before for fresh bagels in the morning.

The recipe I used is from the Hairy Bikers. It makes 12. The raw dough and the baked bagels both freeze quite well.

500g flour

a small packet of yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of honey

1 egg

300ml warm water

Optional: poppy or sesame seeds

In a food processor, blend the flour, yeast, salt, honey and egg until mixed. Gradually add the warm (not hot!) water until the mixture comes together. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly until smooth. This should take about 10 minutes. Place the dough into a bowl, cover with a damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for at least an hour to prove - it will double in size. 

When the dough has proved, turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back to reduce the volume of the dough. 

Divide the dough into twelve portions and roll each into a ball, then flatten slightly. 

Make a hole in the centre of each of the balls using the handle of a wooden spoon or your fingers. 

Place a sheet of greaseproof paper onto a baking tray and grease lightly with vegetable oil. Place the bagels onto the greaseproof paper and cover with cling film. Set aside to prove for about 45-50 minutes. 

Heat your oven to 230 degrees.

When the bagels have proved for the second time, bring a pan of water to the boil and lower the bagels into it in batches. Poach for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the water using a flat egg flip – the bagels are quite soft and stretchy, so they need the support of something large. 

If you like your bagels seeded, now is the time to dip them in a plate of poppy or sesame seeds. I don’t.

Place the bagels onto the lined baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden-brown. Set aside to cool. 

To serve, cut the bagels in half and fill with your choice of smoked salmon and cream cheese, bacon, poached eggs or whatever takes your fancy.