Mini brioche

Happy new year and welcome to 2017!  Thank you all for your continued support, making last Christmas the best ever on the blog which tells me that many of you are wanting to use your steam or combi oven to its full potential.

I thought I would take my previous brioche recipe and use it to make individual ones for a delicious, Christmas breakfast.  I have always wanted to cook these for Christmas morning but was never up early enough so this time I cheated and made the dough very late on Christmas Eve and finished proving and baking first thing on Christmas morning.  If you don’t intend to do this extended proving method then use your ‘Auto proving dough’ function as mentioned below and let the dough rest until doubled in size.

Serves 6

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
Sugar to dust

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 tightly with cling wrap and leave overnight to prove.  IF you want to prove immediately read item 5 in the Pear brioche tart recipe here.
6. Now remove the dough to a lightly floured bench.  It will still be soft but form a fat sausage with the mixture and cut into six pieces.
7. Form each piece into a ball and break off a smaller ‘knob’ that is on the top of traditional brioche so you will have one large and one tiny ball for each.
8. Place each large ball into individual greased brioche tins or a silicone brioche tray and top each with a little ball.
9. Cover again this time with a clean cloth and leave to rise.  This should take approximately 30 minutes.  Sprinkle with a little sugar.
10. Preheat oven to 190°C, I always do this for short cooking items.
11. Bake in combi steamer in Combination mode -190°C + 50% moisture for 15 minutes OR Auto function ‘small yeast buns’ or similar.  You can set and agree to the program, check that the time is approximately 15 minutes otherwise just cancel and cook manually as above.  Most of the auto programs are for larger, 1kg size loaves.
    
12. Remove from oven to a wire rack.