I’m really taken with how versatile the braided dough recipe is!
It’s deliciously buttery, yet only has 40g of butter in the mix, making it a reasonable lower-fat substitute for brioche. The overall preparation time is quite short – whereas regular brioche can take a full day or more to prepare, a batch of this dough started at 9am would easily be ready for lunch. Best of all, it works brilliantly in a variety of different forms, making it great for shaping!
This morning I made a double batch of the dough, using 50:50 bakers flour to plain (AP) flour. This was divided into one 500g and two 600g pieces.
The 500g dough was shaped into a linked chain loaf, following the step by step instructions at The Shiksa Blog. It’s an easy loaf to make, and involves shaping five fat rolls into linked rings, and then joining the last ring to the first to form a closed circle.
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One of the 600g pieces of dough was divided into six long thin rolls, then shaped into a Winston knot – a tricky woven design from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread book. It was moderately successful in form, but I think I’ll need to try with a larger quantity of dough next time. The crumb, though, was perfect.
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The remaining 600g piece of dough was divided into eight balls, which were packed snugly against each other in a parchment lined loaf tin. The end result was this gorgeous faux brioche, with its wonderfully tender texture. Here are a couple of crumb shots to tempt you!
Edit: Today’s loaf: a simple six braid design baked in a loaf tin…
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 