Not so Brioche “Sugar Brioche” Bars

I love all kinds of viennoiserie. Be it croissants, pain au chocolat, danish pastries or bricohes. Unfortunately, these pastries are not easily available in my city. If i really want to have some, I must make them myself.

As I am quite scared of any thing that involves yeast I need to muster up some courage to dig in and dirty my hands. The worst thing i could do would be to just bin them if they turned out too horrible. Alas, I tried my hand at a brioche recipe and it did not turn out as it should have. However, it was just as much tasty and quite addicitve to be frank.

A good Brioche must be rich, slightly puffy with a flaky, soft crust. Mine wasn’t as flaky as it should be. The yeast did not get activated correctly as my dough did not rise too much. Oh! What a bugger! I went ahead and baked them anyway. Much to my surprise, they turned out to be super delicious and a great addition for a Sunday special brunch or tea time snack. These had a buttery, flaky texture and just melted in the mouth.

As they say,”All’s well that ends well.” 😉

Well, not exactly. I felt quite edgy and wanted to make the perfect brioche. So I did the next day. i made a cinnamon walnut brioche loaf and it turned out really well. 🙂

Ingredients:
Parisian Brioche :
250 g all purpose flour
30 g sugar
1 tsp salt
10 g yeast
3 eggs
165 g butter, diced and softened
100 g pearl sugar

Glaze
1 egg/ some milk

Instructions :
Making the Bricohe Dough:
Place the flour, sugar, salt in a mixing bowl. Add in the yeast making sure it doesn’t touch the salt. Knead in the eggs one at a time. Add the softened butter to the dense dough. Continue kneading until the dough is elastic and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, 5 to 10 minutes. Stop when you can hold the dough in your hand and it keeps its shape.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about one hour. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough into a rectangle. Cut it crosswise into bars. Place the bars on the baking sheet spacing them well apart. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours.

Baking the Brioche Sugar Bars:
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly beat an egg for the glaze. Brush the brioche bars with the egg glaze and sprinkle with the pearl sugar. You can substitute coarse or brown sugar for the topping.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool before serving.

The Brioche recipe has been adapted from Christophe Felder.

For more oomph, sandwich raspberries and nutella between two of these bars! 🙂

I am taking these delicious bars over to Angie’s Fiesta Friday party. See you there!

Bon Apetit!