"Overnight" Brioche Braid

For this June 2012, the Avid Baker's Challenge is baking Overnight Brioche Braid from the book, The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson.

This brioche is named the "overnight" brioche because the author has made three different suggestions to enjoy this bread without baking and eating it all within the same day. Of all, I actually prefer the last option which is to bake this bread first and then store it "overnight" or longer in a freezer until it is required. I didn't like to store yeast-ed dough (unshaped or shaped) in the fridge because I think that the yeast culture will need a longer time to get active again.

Instead of baking one large loaf of brioche, I have baked this recipe into braided rolls. Generally, I find that this bread dough is quite soft and slightly oily and had to add 2 tablespoons of bread flour for half of recipe while kneading the dough.

In regardless of all suggestions, I reckon that this is a must-try recipe because these buttery brioche bread is really good! These rolls being thawed "overnight" or not are all very soft and delicious.

Final proving of these braided rolls

Before and after baking...

Very nice and soft texture... Yum!

This recipe is mostly adapted from the book, The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge. Briefly, the following points are the modifications that I have made from this recipe.

• Instead of all purpose flour, I use a combination of bread flour and Italian OO flour in the ratio of 1:4.
• Instead of using warmed whole milk, I've replaced with 25g milk powder plus water for 2/3 amount of recipe)
• My egg glaze is replaced with egg yolk and milk.
• Instead of kneading using an electric mixer with dough hook, I've placed all my ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 1 hr.
• Instead of one large loaf, I've baked my braided brioche into braided rolls. For 2/3 amount of this recipe, I've divided the dough into 6 portions and further divided each portion into 3 equal pieces. Roll each piece into 12-15 cm long and braided 3 of the ropes together and tuck both ends together to form a circular braid. Repeat shaping for the rest of the 5 portions and place all on the prepared sheet.
• Using 2/3 amount of this recipe, I've baked 6 braided rolls at 180°C fan forced for 20 min.

Happy Baking
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