Brioche pear tart

This is an old recipe from a 1994 Gourmet magazine that I baked years ago.  I thought I would give it another go using the combi-steam oven and see what all the fuss is about.  I wanted to know if I can bake a yeast dough at home that is as good as you can buy in a patisserie.   We know that the commercial bakers use a combination of moisture and radiant heat for baking bread and yeast based dough so I assume this is going to be fabulous!  I have had a lot of hits on my ‘bread’ section so I will try to increase this category.

You will see below that I am cooking it on a ‘Combination program’.  Add your stages one by one, it will ask you for all the information.  If you don’t have a Miele combi steamer then you should still be able to stage cook or otherwise select an automatic program that is a yeast based dough with a fruit topping, or even just a yeast based dough setting would work.  Keep in mind that the overall cooking time is approximately 30 minutes and you can’t go wrong.  Remember you don’t need to pre-heat (which is just amazing!)

I have altered the old recipe a little and used ripe pears.  I still remember when I baked it last time it was  a lot of messing around with a syrup and you really don’t need a syrup with it.  If you don’t have ripe pears you will need to poach them first in a light sugar syrup with a cinnamon stick and the rind of a lemon and orange.  I am just going to glaze it with a little orange marmalade when it comes out of the oven.  It does need this and the strips of orange rind really made the dish.

Ingredients:  Serves 8

225g (1½ cups) plain flour, sifted
2 tbsp. castor sugar
1 x 7g sachet of dried yeast
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup milk, warmed
90g butter, softened
5 small ripe pears

Method:

1. For dough, combine flour, sugar, yeast and 1/2 tsp salt into a large bowl or mix master fitted with a dough hook.  Mix well
2. Combine eggs with the warm milk and pour into flour mixture.  Knead with the mixer for about 5 minutes until the dough comes together.  It will be soft and sticky.
3. Add small pieces of the softened butter piece by piece to the mixer to incorporate the butter.  Knead well for about 8 minutes.  I just left it all in the mixer.
4. Oil a large bowl well with vegetable oil.  Tip in the mix and turn it over to coat in the oil
5. Cover with Glad Wrap and place in the combi steamer on Auto-Special Program- Prove yeast dough.  It will take 15 minutes but turn off the oven when finished and leave the bowl to sit in the warm oven for 1 hour or until doubled in size.  You can preheat the oven to 30° and leave in this temperature if you prefer or if it’s a particularly cold day.
6. Now remove the dough to a lightly floured bench.  It will still be soft but just turn it over and place in a well-greased 26cm tart tin with removable base. It was too soft to roll out, I just patted it to the edges of the tin.
7. Cover with a clean tea towel while you peel and core the pears.  Arrange over the dough leaving plenty of room for the dough to rise up around the edge of the tin.
8. Cover again and leave to rise up around the pears.  This should take approximately 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with a little castor sugar.  The fresh pears will discolour a little, toss them in some lemon juice before laying over the dough if you prefer but it didn’t show once cooked.
9. Bake in combi steamer in Combination mode Stage 1 -190°C + 90% moisture for 20 minutes then Stage 2- 160°C + 30% moisture for 10 minutes
10. Remove from oven to a wire rack.
11. While it is cooking heat a little orange marmalade with a touch of water in a saucepan and brush over warm brioche.

Serve warm 🙂

Conclusion:  It was fabulous!  So light and fluffy a with a golden base and definitely exactly like you would buy from a Patisserie!  The addition of the steam really enhanced the texture and finish of this brioche.