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

Raspberry mousse

We had some friends over this weekend and I was on a bit of a retro kick, so I made some raspberry mousse. It was my first time using gelatin since making cheesecakes at my mammy’s knee back in the 80’s (remember when they’d just arrived from America and they were The Big Thing?).

Raspberry mousse

For four large portions, or six smaller ones, you will need:

500g raspberries (I used frozen ones – you can get these in many large supermarkets, and I’m sure you can use any of the frozen fruits in a box – there is red fruit mix and blueberries – dead handy to have in the freezer for emergency desserts or baking muffins, biscuits, crumbles, etc…)

80g sugar

150g fresh cream (I used 15% fat cream)

2 eggs

3 sheets of gelatin (in the recipe, it said that this is equal to 6 sheets that you’d usually find in the shops. Now, this was very confusing. Did it mean to use three or six? I used six, and the mousse was very solid, so I reckon that 4 sheets of Carrefour gelatin, in a pale blue packet, about 12x6cm, would do).

Steep the gelatin in a bowl of cold water for about 10 minutes.

Put the raspberries in a pot, heat until mushy and pass through a sieve to get rid of all the pips. Keep the liquid on the heat and add the sugar. Heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Once all the sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat, squeeze the gelatin and add this to the raspberry and sugar until it too is dissolved.  Leave this to cool.

Whip the cream until it is fairly thick – you’re looking for it to make shapes when the whip is removed. You’re going to finish making the mousse in this bowl, so you’ll need a fairly large one.

Separate the whites from the yolks and beat the whites in a clean bowl until they too can keep their shape when the whip is removed.

Slowly and gently add the cooled raspberry mixture to the cream. It’s a good idea to use a whip, to keep the air in it. Once it’s all fairly well mixed together add the egg whites and fold that through too, lightly, to keep the air. Pour into 4-6 glasses and chill for a few hours.


As I said, these were a bit too solid, so a bit less gelatin next time, but overall they were good and fruity. Definitely something for these summer evenings.  

Just desserts – baked toffee cheesecake

I made this cheesecake for mothers day this weekend. It’s a calorie-fest, which is what all desserts should be. We got 12 wedges from this.

Baked toffee cheesecake

I’d never made toffee before, but given how simple it is, I will make it again. And I will definitely make the cheesecake again, even though I’m not a huge fan of them usually. There was not a very strong taste of toffee from the cake itself, so you could always double the amount of toffee you make and add the extra to the mixture.

Toffee cheesecake

Ingredients

For the base

250g dinosaur biscuits (I used the ones in the yellow box. The original recipe uses chocolate digestives)

75g butter

(the original recipe has 100g pecans and 150g biscuits but as one of the party has a nut allergy, I left these out)

For the filling

375g caster sugar

4 tbsp cold water

150g white chocolate, broken into squares

600g full-fat cream cheese

150ml double cream

2 free-range egg yolks

4 free-range eggs

For the topping

300ml double cream

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and lightly oil a 23cm/9in springform cake tin.

Put the biscuits into a food processor and blend to a coarse powder. Alternatively, put them in a bag and bash them with a rolling pin. Melt the butter in a small pot and pour into the food processor with the motor running. Blend until the biscuits and butter are thoroughly combined.

Place the crumb mixture into the cake tin. Spread evenly over the base and press down lightly with the back of a spoon. Place the tin in the fridge and leave the base to set while you make the filling.

For the filling, put 200g/7oz of the caster sugar in a saucepan with the cold water and heat gently until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Bring the liquid to the boil and cook for 4-5 minutes without stirring until the sugar syrup turns a deep golden brown. Swirl the caramel around the pan gently as it bubbles.

Bubbling water and sugar, waiting to go brown

As soon as the caramel is the colour of toffee, remove from the heat and carefully pour onto the lined baking tray. Tilt the tin so the caramel covers the base evenly. Leave to cool and set – this only takes a few minutes.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Take off the heat and leave to cool for 20 minutes, but do not allow to set.

Melted white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and boil a kettle of water.

Put the cheese, cream, remaining sugar, egg yolks and eggs in a food processor and blend until smooth. Gradually add the cooled chocolate with the motor running and blend until just mixed.

Crushed toffee

Crush the hardened caramel into small shards using the end of a rolling pin. Fold half of the caramel into the cheese mixture and pour gently on to the biscuit base. (Keep the rest on the tray, lightly covered with clingfilm in a cool place. Do not put in the fridge or the moisture will cause the caramel to soften).

Put a large piece of aluminium foil on the work surface. Place the tin in the centre of the foil and bring up the sides to create a foil bowl around the cheesecake.

Place in a medium-sized roasting tin and add enough just-boiled water to rise 2cm/¾in up the sides of the tin. Carefully place the roasting tin in the centre of the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. The cheesecake is ready when it is almost, but not fully, set.

When the cheesecake is ready, turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake inside for a further 30 minutes. (This will help prevent the surface cracking as the cheesecake cools).

Lift the cake tin from the water and peel off the foil. Put the cheesecake in the fridge, cover and chill for at least two hours before serving.

To serve, carefully release the tin and slide the cheesecake onto a flat serving plate or cake stand, using a palette knife to help you. Whip the cream until soft peaks form and spoon in big fluffy clouds over the cheesecake. Scatter the remaining shards of caramel on top. Serve in wedges.