by Julia Child
3) Kneading—pétrissage
This will be a very soft and sticky dough that now contains the minimum amount of flour; you will probably knead in more if dough remains too soft. Knead with one hand, keeping the other clean for emergencies.
Using scraper or spatula, start flipping the near side of the dough over onto the far side, the right side onto the left, and so forth, rapidly and vigorously a dozen times or more until dough begins to have body and elasticity.
When dough has enough body, lift and slap it down roughly on the kneading surface repeatedly, using scraper to help you. Sprinkle on more flour by tablespoons (up to 3 or 4 in all if necessary) if dough remains too soft and sticky.
It should be a soft dough that will stick to your fingers if you hold a pinch of it for more than 2 to 3 seconds. Knead until it has enough elasticity to draw back into shape when pushed out, probably 4 to 5 minutes, then let it rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Knead again for a moment and it is ready for the butter.
4) Kneading in the butter
By 2-tablespoon bits, start folding, kneading, and smearing the butter into the dough with the heel of your hand; then gather the dough into a mass, chopping it into small pieces with your scraper and smearing again. Keep working in more bits of butter as each previous addition is partially absorbed.
Dough will be ropy, sticky, and very messy indeed until it begins to absorb the butter. Work rapidly, especially if the kitchen is warm, and be sure you are using the heel, not the palm, of your hand.
You may finish kneading with a scraper or spatula, which will prevent the butter from becoming too warm and turning oily. Do not hesitate to chill the dough for 20 minutes or so if this happens, and then continue.
When all the butter is absorbed, the dough will look rather fluffy. Let it rest for 2 to 3 minutes, and knead briefly again. Kneading is finished when dough draws back into shape after being pushed out.
5) First rising—pointage premier temps—5 to 6 hours at around 70 degrees
A clean 3- to 4-quart mixing bowl
A large plastic bag that bowl will fit into, or a large sheet of plastic
A bath towel
You have 2⅔ cups of dough that is to rise to almost triple in volume, or to about 7 cups. Fill bowl with 7 cups of tepid water, make a mark on the outside of the bowl to guide you, pour out water and dry the bowl. Place dough in bowl, slip into plastic bag or cover with plastic and arrange bath towel on top. Set on a wooden or plastic surface or on a towel or pillow. For best texture and flavor, dough should take 5 to 6 hours to rise to the 7-cup mark, at which point it will feel light and springy, though somewhat sticky because of the butter.
NOTE: In hot weather you will probably have to set bowl in refrigerator from time to time to prevent butter from melting and oozing out of dough.
(*) DELAYED ACTION: Set bowl in refrigerator for a short delay; for a longer one, cover with waxed paper, a plate, and a 10-lb. weight to slow or even prevent its rising.
6) Deflating—rupture
With a rubber spatula or the slightly cupped fingers of one hand, dislodge dough from inside of bowl and turn out onto a lightly floured surface, scraping bowl clean. Sprinkle surface of dough with a teaspoon or so of flour.
With the lightly floured palms of your hands, pat and push dough out into a roughly shaped rectangle about 10 inches long.
With the help of a scraper or spatula, flip the right side of the dough over toward the center, then flip the left side over to cover it, as though folding a business letter. Pat the dough out again into a rectangle, fold again in three, and replace the dough in the bowl. Cover again with plastic and a towel.
(*) If you want to freeze brioche dough, this is the best time to do so, but see notes on freezing.
7) Second rising—pointage deuxième temps—2 to 6 hours or more, depending on temperature
Brioche dough is usually chilled before it is formed so that it can be shaped easily; chilling may be done either during or after the second rise, whichever works out best for your cooking schedule.
room temperature method:
Let dough rise to 2 times its original volume, or to about 5½ cups, at a temperature of around 70 degrees. This should take 1½ to 2 hours. Then dislodge from bowl with a rubber spatula or the slightly cupped fingers of one hand, and refrigerate on a large plate or platter covered with waxed paper, another plate, and a weight. Dough should be ready to form in 30 to 40 minutes.
refrigerator method:
Let dough start to rise at around 70 degrees for an hour, then refrigerate. Dough will continue to rise for an hour or more until the butter congeals. If you wish to leave it overnight, cover with a plate and a weight when you refrigerate it.
Forming and baking brioches
Brioches are usually baked in fluted molds with slightly outward-slanting sides. However, you can use anything you have available, from a baking dish or ovenproof bowl for large brioches to pyrex cups or muffin tins for small ones.
Notes on final rise
The final rise before baking is to almost double in volume, until the dough feels light and softly springy when touched. The ideal rising temperature is around 75 degrees, and you have to watch the dough carefully on a hot day because higher temperatures melt the butter so that it oozes out of the dough. If this starts to happen, refrigerate the dough from time to time. It is difficult to predict how long the final rise will take; if the dough was thoroughly chilled before forming, it will take longer to rise. You must usually count on at least an hour, and it must really rise and soften or it will bake into a rather firm and dense brioche. Following are directions for forming and baking large, small, and ring brioches.
GROSSE BRIOCHE À TÊTE
[Large Brioche with Ball-shaped Head]
1) Forming the brioche
1 tsp soft butter
A 6-cup circular fluted mold or a cylindrical baking dish
The preceding brioche dough, chilled
Butter the interior of the mold or dish. With lightly floured hands on a lightly floured board, form ¾ of the dough into a smooth ball by kneading it lightly and rolling it between the palms of your hands. Place the ball in the bottom of the mold.
Make a funnel-shaped hole in the center of the dough 2½ inches wide at the top diameter and about 2 inches deep, using your first 3 fingers. Roll the remaining dough between the lightly floured palms of your hands to make a ball, then a tear-drop shape. Insert pointed end of tear drop into hole.
2) Final rising—1 to 2 hours at 75 degrees
Set uncovered and free from drafts at a temperature of around 75 degrees until dough has almost doubled in volume, and feels light and softly springy when touched. Be sure your oven has been preheated to 475 degrees by the time the brioche is ready to bake.
(*) DELAYED ACTION: You can set mold in refrigerator, covering it with a bowl to prevent dough from crusting; you can cover the formed dough airtight and freeze, but see notes.
3) Glazing and clipping
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water in a small bowl
A pastry brush
A pair of sharp-pointed scissors
Just before baking, paint surface with beaten egg, being sure not to glaze where the head joins the main body of the brioche as this could glue the two together and prevent the head from rising. In a moment, glaze with a second coat.
To help head in shaping up during baking, make 4 to 5 scissor clips in the large ball close under the head and slanting inward about half the width of the head.
4) Baking, cooling, and storing—oven at 475 degrees, then 350; baking time: 40 to 50 minutes
Place the mold with the risen, glazed, and clipped brioche on a baking sheet in the middle or lower-middle level of the preheated 475-degree oven. In 15 to 20 minutes, when the brioche has risen and started to brown lightly, turn thermostat down to 350 degrees. Total baking time will be 40 to 50 minutes; brioche is done when it has begun to show a very faint line of shrinkage from the mold, or when a knife or straw plun
ged down through the center comes out clean. If, during baking, brioche seems to be browning too much, cover loosely with heavy brown paper or foil.
Cool on a rack for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Brioches may be eaten slightly warm or cool; cold brioches may be warmed for 10 to 15 minutes in a 350-degree oven.
(*) Brioches dry out and become stale almost within 12 hours of baking. To preserve their freshness, wrap airtight and freeze; large frozen brioches take about half an hour to thaw in a 350-degree oven.
VARIATIONS
Petites Brioches à Tête
[Small Individual Brioches with Ball-shaped Heads]
Choose either ½-cup, slant-sided fluted molds for small brioches, or baking cups or muffin tins. Form in the same way as large brioches, filling the molds half full and letting dough rise to almost double. Paint twice with egg glaze and clip under the heads in several places just before baking. Bake about 15 minutes at 475 degrees in middle level of oven.
Brioche en Couronne
[Ring-shaped Brioche]
The brioche dough, chilled
A baking sheet
Optional: an ovenproof bowl or cup
Knead the chilled dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface.
Make a hole in the center with your finger, twirling dough around your finger to enlarge the hole and inserting more fingers as the hole gets bigger.
When hole is large enough to do so, insert both hands and gently stretch dough while twirling it on floured surface. The object is to make a doughnut shape 10 to 12 inches in diameter.
Place shaped dough on a lightly buttered baking sheet and let rest 10 minutes to relax gluten, then widen the circle a little more.
To keep center of dough from closing in during rising and baking, insert a lightly buttered ovenproof bowl or cup in hole.
Let dough rise, uncovered, to almost double at a temperature of around 75 degrees, until dough is light and springy to the touch. Paint with a double coating of egg glaze (1 egg beaten with 1 tsp of water) just before baking.
Then clip top of dough at 1-inch intervals, making cuts about 1 inch deep, pointing scissors toward outside of ring at a 45-degree angle.
Bake 20 to 30 minutes in the middle level of a preheated 475-degree oven until nicely puffed and browned. A knife or straw plunged into the center of one side should come out clean. If brioche browns too much during baking, cover loosely with heavy brown paper or aluminum foil.
Kougloff
[Brioche with Raisins]
Whether or not this molded ring-shaped raisin brioche originated with Viennese bakers, it is usually considered by the French to be an Alsatian raisin cake of uncertain orthography, as you will see it spelled also Kugelhopf, Kougelhof, Gougelhop, and even Gugelhupf. Bakers frequently make Kougloff out of leftover brioche dough, softening it with a little milk or additional butter as they knead in the raisins just before dropping the dough into its mold.
For a 6-cup Kougloff
Special requirements
¾ cup (4 ounces) small currant raisins
1 to 1½ tsp soft butter
A 6-cup Kougloff mold, or any fluted ring mold 3½ to 4 inches deep and about 8½ inches at rim diameter that holds 6 cups
¼ cup shaved blanched almonds (skinless almonds sliced paper thin, available in cans or plastic)
To soften raisins, soak 10 to 15 minutes in very hot water; drain, twist hard in the corner of kitchen towel to squeeze out accumulated water, and spread out on a paper towel until needed. Butter the mold heavily, then sprinkle a tablespoon of the almonds in the bottom, reserving the rest until later.
1) Softening the dough
Brioche dough, Master Recipe
If needed, 3 to 4 Tb milk and/or butter
So that it will mold smoothly, dough for Kougloffs must be soft and sticky. If you are making the dough specifically for a Kougloff, knead in only 4 of the 6 ounces of butter called for in Steps 2 and 4 of the Master Recipe and complete the recipe through Step 8. After the second rise, knead in the remaining 2 ounces of butter and the raisins. If you are using leftover brioche dough, soften it by kneading in milk and/or butter by half tablespoons, then knead in the raisins.
2) Filling the mold and final rise
A pastry scraper or stiff metal spatula
A rubber spatula
The remaining almonds
A tablespoon or so of flour
Gather a 2-tablespoon gob of the soft dough on the end of your scraper or metal spatula and use the rubber spatula to dislodge it and place it on the bottom of the prepared mold. Continue spreading it around the mold to make a layer. Sprinkle or press more almonds against inside of mold, and add another layer of dough; continue thus until all dough is used. Sprinkle lightly with flour and press dough gently against sides and cone of mold with floured fingers. Mold will be about ½ filled. Let rise uncovered at around 75 degrees for an hour or more, until mold is almost filled.
3) Baking—oven at 475 degrees, then at 350; 30 to 40 minutes
Bake at 475 degrees in middle or lower-middle level of preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until dough has risen and started to color. Then lower thermostat to 350 degrees for rest of baking. Kougloff is done when it shows a faint line of shrinkage from sides of mold and when the sides are nicely browned. Serve slightly warm or cool, with butter.
The processor can work wonderfully with some doughs. The trick is to process the dry ingredients and butter first, then—with the machine running—to pour in ¾ of the liquid called for. Never stop the machine; add the rest of the liquid by dribbles until the dough masses on top of the blade and rolls around under the cover for 15 to 20 seconds, for the preliminary kneading. If dough is too damp, it will not mass; sprinkle in a little flour, which may help. If not, knead by hand. By experimenting, you will find the way that works best for you.
Freezing brioche dough
The best time to freeze brioche dough is after the second rise, but you may also do so after it has been formed and before the final rise. However, and probably because of the high butter and egg content, its life in the freezer is not long: a week to 10 days is all we would suggest.
CROISSANTS
The most delicious of French croissants, to our mind, are those called croissants de boulanger, which are made of risen yeast-milk-and-flour dough that is flattened out, slathered with butter, folded in three, and rolled and folded again three times as though you were making French puff pastry. There are other formulas for croissants, including some which are really puff pastry or brioche dough rolled into crescent shapes. And in some of the quick methods the yeast dough has only a short single rise, resulting in a semi-puff pastry. None of these, to our mind, produces the tenderly layered, puffy, deliciously buttery croissant one dreams of. The old classic method does just this—and why go to all the trouble of making croissants otherwise?
CROISSANTS
The minimum time required for making croissants is 11 to 12 hours. Included are 3 hours and 1½ hours for the rising of the initial dough, two rest periods of 1½ to 2 hours each, and a final pre-baking rise of about an hour. Therefore, if you want freshly baked croissants for breakfast you will have to stay up all night as the bakers do. However, they will taste just as fresh if you make them ahead and freeze them either fully baked or ready to bake, as indicated in the recipe.
For one dozen 5½-inch rolls
1) The basic dough
½ cake (0.3 ounce) fresh yeast or 1½ tsp dry-active yeast
3 Tb warm water (not over 100 degrees) in a measure
1 tsp sugar
Mix the yeast in the warm water with the sugar and let liquefy completely while measuring out the rest of the ingredients.
1¾ cups (about ½ lb. all-purpose flour measured by scooping dry-measure cups into flour and leveling off with straight-edged knife)
A 3- to 4-quart mixing bowl
2 tsp sugar
1½ tsp salt
⅔ cup milk warmed to tepid in a small saucepan
2 Tb tasteless salad oil
A rubber spatula
A pastry scraper or stiff metal spatula
Measure the flour into the mixing bowl. Dissolve the additional sugar and the salt in the tepid milk. When yeast has liquefied, pour it along with the milk mixture and oil into the flour. Blend the elements into a dough by cutting and pressing with the rubber spatula, being sure all bits of flour are gathered in. Turn dough out onto kneading surface, scraping bowl clean. Let rest for 2 to 3 minutes while you wash and dry the bowl. The short rest allows flour to absorb liquid; dough will be quite soft and sticky.