Let them eat brioche.

Let them eat cake. This phrase has wrecked the reputation of a daft but otherwise genuine and generous individual. Rendered in the original French (Qu'ils mangent de la brioche), the phrase sheds light on my first bread and the way that food and baking can reflect the social and economic conditions behind how and why certain foods are developed. Based on how rich you like the bread (and how rich you were, back in the 18th century), the amount of butter could be adjusted, creating a loaf with a nearly 1:1 butter to flour ratio for the richest of bread eaten by nobility, and closer to a 1:4 butter to flour ratio in the poor, tired, overworked peasants. Brioche made right is truly the kind of bread that Paula Deen could get behind.

The bread is light and flaky, very similar to a puff pastry. There are several ways to prepare the bread: in loaves or, for smaller rolls, as brioche a tete, prepared in special fluted tins with a glob of dough on top, creating the 'head' of the roll. I opted to make two loaves, not owning any brioche molds and knowing that I would be taking one loaf in to work. Due to the large quantity of butter and eggs in the dough, it handles more like cookie dough than your average bread dough, so I also used this opportunity to create my first real braided loaves (my previous braided bread experience being a bread wreath in middle school that completely enveloped the pan it was baked in and promptly turned coal black).

The recipe starts out simply enough with flour, yeast and milk. The ingredients are mixed together to form a sponge and left sitting for about 30 minutes until it begins to form bubbles (carbon dioxide).

I left mine by our knife rack, just in case anyone gets the wrong idea about coming in and stealing my sponge. The second bowl is a soaker of water and cornmeal for the other bread I made this weekend, anadama bread.

As you can see, this sponge looks like a very rough start to what a princess would consider her everyday sweets.

The next round of ingredients to be added were more flour, sugar, salt, eggs and a cup of butter (as I was only making the middle-class brioche recipe, not wanting to completely clog everyone's arteries).

After adding the eggs, the mixture was starting to look slightly more appealing. Next up: flour!

By now the mixture was starting to behave more like an oatmeal cookie dough than anything. Let's see what butter does to it...

That's more like it. After slowly working in the two sticks of butter, the dough started to behave much more like bread dough, but was still very pliable and reactive. At this point, the dough sat in the fridge overnight in order to develop its flavor.

The next day, the dough came out of the fridge and I immediately worked the into two braided loaves. The dough had started to behave much more like bread dough at this point, scrunching back up whenever I tried to roll out the strands, but in the end, I prevailed. The ends were a little sloppy where I connected them, but those baked out in the end, so no worries there.

After letting them rise in the oven with a measuring cup of nearly boiling water, as the apartment was a little too cold for proofing without assistance that day, the loaves were ready for the final step before baking: an egg wash.

And there you have it. Beautiful golden loaves, full of buttery goodness. As my first real loaves to make on my own (other than asking Bill to see whether each stage looked fine), I must say that this wasn't a bad place to start. I don't think the other breads will be anything like this, due do the way the dough handled with the butter and eggs, but it was nice to start with a dough that seemed similar to making cookies.

The bread itself is very light and the crust is flaky like a good croissant. So far its proven very nice with both jam and honey, providing the buttery flavor all on its own. Reinhart suggests using the dough for cinnamon rolls or other sweet treats, and I can see that being a very good thing. I may end up using part of the bread for french toast at some point.

So my first bread was a triumph! (My second bread was a triumph as well, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise too early. I'll blog about the anadama bread tomorrow, probably.) This will be a long journey, as I have two other Reinhart books that I'll tackle after The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I learned quite a bit from just my first loaf, including terminology such as a 'soaker', and tips and tricks, such as proofing bread in the oven with a measuring cup of hot water. This venture may just prove successful!

Brioche? Check.

Next up? Anadama bread.