Chocolate Brioche

Since I was at college for Mother's Day, I could only send her a card for the actual day. Last year what I did was make Father's Day brunch for the both of them, but this year I wanted to bake more and make a breakfast that was much more specialized to my mom's tastes since she likes different things from my dad, so I separated the two (though still made the breakfast for both of my parents, with extras for my brothers and me).

One of the things my mom loves are chocolate croissants. I didn't exactly feel like I could make those, so I found a great Chocolate Brioche recipe. It was my first time making a yeast bread and it was extremely successful and relatively easy! It just took a lot of time and patience. I also made my mom mini quiches, because she likes quiche, and homemade hot chocolate with homemade whipped cream, which she also likes. And I cut up some watermelon. My mom isn't a big breakfast person, but I really wanted to pick the things that I know she likes!

I did all the mixing for this recipe by hand, and forgot the egg wash, but definitely didn't need it as the brioche looked and tasted beautiful. It was a very sticky dough but chilling it overnight definitely made it easier to work with. The result was a very light and buttery bread--absolutely amazing.



Chocolate Brioche
Recipe adapted from Sari

Ingredients
1/3 cup warm milk
1/3 cup warm water
10 g dry active yeast
3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup + 5 tbsp butter, cut into small cubes, softened
150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 egg, beaten with 1 tbsp water, for egg wash (I left this out)

In a large bowl mix warm water, warm milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar and yeast. Stir until yeast dissolves and let proof for 10 minutes.
Add flour and salt and mix with a wooden spoon until flour is moistened. Beat in eggs, adding one egg at a time, making sure each egg is well incorporated before adding another one.

Add sugar and keep kneading dough until it comes together. Now comes the tricky part. Mix in butter, adding only one or two cubes at a time, kneading well until each cube is incorporated before adding another cube. This can takes about 10 minutes before all butter is fully incorporated. Dough is fully kneaded when it pulls away form sides of your bowl.
Transfer the dough into a clean bowl, cover with a plastic wrap and let it rise at room temperature for 1 hours or until double in size. Lift up dough around edges and allow it to deflate.

Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours. Punch the dough down to deflate it every 30 minutes until it stops rising. Cover bowl with a plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When you are ready to make brioche, butter a muffin pan or brioche tins you want to use.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and scrape it out on a floured surface. Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece between your palms to form a ball. Flatten each ball of dough and put several pieces of chocolate in the middle of each one. Roll up into a ball shape and place in the pan.

Cover the pan loosely with a plastic wrap and let rise for two hours at room temperature.

Brush each ball with egg wash and bake in the preheated oven to 350 degrees F for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown.

Allow brioche to cool for a couple of minutes in the pan and then transfer onto the cooling rack.