Brioche (François Perret, Ritz Paris)

For the one among you who have been following me a long time, you may remember that almost 2 years ago I won a competition on the theme of Paris-Brest organized by the Ritz culinary school. The first prize was a night at the Ritz, where I went almost a year ago. Why am I bringing this up again ? Because in addition to the hotel night, I also had the chance to enjoy breakfast, which included the best brioche of my life, a simple but incredibly good little round brioche. So inevitably, when I received François Perret's book, Instants Sucrés at the Ritz Paris, I rushed to the recipe for the brioche, and it was only once I had mixed all the ingredients that I realised the big mistake in terms of the quantity of milk. So I added flour and butter and I got a very good brioche, but it wasn't the same as the Ritz’s one. Finally, while searching on the internet recently I came across the blog letabliergourmet.fr which gave the recipe with the right amount of milk and so I went for it ! And the result is great brioches with a good taste of butter (logical you might say, with the amount of butter in the recipe...) and super soft. I made them the day before for the next day and they remained super soft (packaged, they keep well for 2 or 3 days even if of course they will never be better than a few minutes after they are taken out of the oven



Prep time: 50 minutes + rest time (30 minutes + 4 hours or one night) + 10 minutes cooking
For18 little individual brioches, or 2 big ones to share :

Ingredients :

20g whole milk
14g fresh yeast
400g T45 flour
50g brown sugar
1 good pinch of fleur de sel /salt
230g eggs (between 4 and 5 eggs, you can use the surplus for the egg wash) + maybe one egg for the egg wash
280g butter
Optional: chocolate chips, pink pralines, raisins...

Recipe :

Crumble the fresh yeast into the milk.



Cover with flour, then add salt, sugar and eggs.



Knead at low speed until the dough is smooth and comes away from the sides of the bowl (this first step takes about 10 to 15 minutes).



Then add the butter and knead again until you have a smooth, elastic dough that comes away from the sides of the bowl and forms a « veil » : it can be stretched without tearing, the glutinous network is well formed.






Form a ball, then let your dough grow at room temperature for 30 minutes (it should swell well).



Degas the dough (press it to get the gas out), then form a ball again, film it and put it in the fridge for a night (if like me you are in a hurry, a few hours may be enough. However, as it is a well-buttered brioche, it will be much easier to work cold. Personally, I left it in the refrigerator for 3 or 4 hours and I managed to shape it but in this case, you have to be quick so that the dough does not get too hot).



Then, cut the brioche dough to make the desired shape(s): braided, nanterre, crown...
I've chosen to shape it the way I tasted it at the Ritz breakfast, in individual brioches. To do this, I have divided my dough into 55g balls: take 55g of dough, spread the dough slightly and fold it over.




Turn it over and with the palm of your hand form a smooth ball.




Place the resulting brioche on parchment paper. Don't forget to space the brioches apart, they will swell well.



If you want to add chocolate chips or other ingredients, do so when you roll out the dough, before you form the brioche.



Spread a thin layer of egg wash with a brush on each brioche so that they do not dry out.
Let the brioches grow at room temperature for about 1h30 (to be adjusted according to the temperature, 1 hour may be enough in case of high heat).
Then, put a second layer of egg wash on the brioches and bake them in the oven preheated to 180°C for 10 minutes (to be adjusted of course according to the shape you choose, for a large brioche lower the temperature a little and increase the baking time.



Allow to cool slightly, then enjoy !