Book 1: Donna Hay - A Cook's Guide

I love this book, unlike lots of my other recipe books I've actually used this quite a bit.  Its got a great mix of basics and spiffy recipes and its set out in a way that makes it fairly easy to follow.  I'm a fan of Donna Hay's so you will see quite a few of her books pop up on here..... Anyway  (I did warn you about my tendency to waffle!)

Recipe:    Basic Brioche  pg 96

I've never made or even eaten Brioche before but I've been thinking about it for a while and finally pulled my finger out.  This is a really long recipe to cook, time wise, with the the rising time it takes over 4 hours to get the the actual eating.  But after eating it I think its worth it!

The Final product..

I haven't put the recipe up for this post, but I will from now on (let me know if you want this one, otherwise get the book its great)

I will say with this recipe that you have to have a stand mixer with a dough hook.  I wouldn't even bother trying to make it by hand, unless you don't want your arms to work afterwards!  I also increased the mount of water I mixed with the yeast at the beginning.  The recipe stated 1tbls but it wasn't nearly enough, my yeast turned into a almost solid ball and I didn't think it would mix with anything else so I added 1 extra tablespoon of lukewarm water.  I don't know if my oven was too hot?  But it also didn't take the full 35-40 minutes to cook, I had it out of the oven by 30 minutes.

Brioche with honey

I slathered my brioche with honey, but you could use it for anything you wanted a decadent bread with.  Its almost like a croissant, a loaf of croissant maybe?  The book has four other recipe suggestions for brioche including Cinnamon Brioche Scrolls (which look delicious!) and a friend of mine told me that brioche makes the best french toast. 

But considering our loaf didn't make it past 9.00am, that might be something for next time :)

Kate

xx