A no-Knead Brioche Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What kind of flour is best for brioche? ›

Before You Even Start Flour Selection After testing this recipe for what seemed like an infinite amount of times –something my boyfriend can attest to– I have come to the conclusion that the best flour to use for brioche is bread flour, which is oftentimes referred to as “strong flour”, “high protein flour”, or “ ...

Why Is My Bread Chewy? Usually your bread will be chewy when there isn't enough gluten formation or you're using a low-protein flour. Make sure you let your bread dough rest for at least 12 hours to give it enough time for gluten formation.

For softer brioche, add three dessertspoons of powdered milk to your mixture. The secret behind soft and fluffy brioche is powdered milk! It makes brioche soft and fluffy, giving it a chewy, tasty texture and a golden colour. It also ensures it keeps for longer.

To develop the gluten in flour, two things are needed: water and agitation. This is why all no-knead doughs are sticky and hard to handle, it's the high water content. On contact with water, the flour begins to form gluten by itself, though at a much slower rate than if you were to knead it.

Baking Soda, Milk and Vinegar

Vinegar, milk and baking soda mixed together helps the bread rise. Use one teaspoon of baking soda, half a teaspoon of vinegar and half a teaspoon of milk to replace two teaspoons of yeast. Lighter batters may have a slightly different texture, but you will still get a rise from the dough.

What makes brioche different to most breads? Brioche is different to most breads because it's made with an enriched dough and tastes a little sweeter. . Because it's an enriched dough, you get that famous brioche texture of soft bread, the classic golden colour and quintessentially rich taste.

Dough that has not been kneaded, or hasn't been kneaded long enough, appears lumpy, doesn't stretch very well, and tears easily. If your dough is like this, it needs more kneading. Keep kneading it until it's smooth, stretchy, and more pliable.

Lubricate With Oil. One of the easiest ways our bakers follow to make bread soft and fluffy is by using 1-2 tablespoons of lubricant/fats such as vegetable oil to wet the ingredients. This will prevent the formation of excess gluten, as excess gluten makes bread chewy.

Too much butter will result in a very soft, sticky dough that's difficult to shape, and bakes up greasy and dense.

Why should butter be added slowly to brioche dough? Adding the butter into your brioche dough is a fairly lengthy process, and the butter should only be added approx. one tablespoon at a time. This is so the dough maintains the stretchy gluten we've built up, and the butter is absorbed slowly.

Can you overproof brioche dough? ›

Overproofed brioche will be super airy and have lots of large air bubbles especially on the surface of the dough. Overproofing during the first rise is easily fixed: Knock all the air out, knead the dough against the counter to shape it back into a ball, and let it rise until it doubles in size again.

Classic no-knead bread (made with ¼ tsp instant yeast and 2¾ cups of flour) often tastes flat and dull. That lack of flavor comes from the yeast outpacing enzymes and consuming too many of the available sugars in the dough.

Editor: Shani, it sounds that your yeast may be too old and expired, or perhaps you're not letting the dough rest adequately after shaping and before baking.

Brioche is a yeasted dough that falls firmly into the enriched dough camp. Unlike simple lean doughs (think French bread or pita bread) that only need flour, yeast, water, and salt, enriched dough also has sugar, butter or oil, eggs, and milk or cream.

Wheat flour (Bread flour is preferable, but any wheat flour is fine.)

The French typically use Type 55 flour for their baguettes, which has a lower protein content than All-Purpose flour (usually 11.5% protein). I know that's not found in your standard supermarket, but you can buy it online from King Arthur Flour.

Bread Flour

It's easy to find in any grocery store (again, King Arthur Flour is a favorite brand), is affordable, and adds some extra oomph and crispiness to thin crust and New York-style pizzas. It will make your crust crispy on the outside and chewy and textured on the inside.