Poilâne’s Mint Brioche

Shaped into petites brioches à tête, these minty balls of eggs and butter are perfectly portioned into small rolls meant to be savored in moderation. Unless you’re French, that is, in which case you’re likely immune to the unsavory side effects of rich foods.

High red wine consumption is supposedly the main factor behind the French Paradox. I did try wine therapy, but being Asian and genetically predisposed to have low alcohol tolerance, I merely ended up drunk and lazy. Back to green tea I go. We have our own paradox, it seems, although obviously not as much fun as the French version.

Peter Reinhart loosely categorizes brioche into three types using the ratio of butter to flour:

• rich man’s brioche (at least 70%)
• middle-class brioche (around 50%)
• poor man’s brioche (at least 20%)

According to my expert calculations, this would put Poilâne’s mint brioche (around 40%) somewhere in between poor man’s and middle-class brioche. Somehow it still seems way too rich to my taste, which is scary because Reinhart’s rich man’s brioche formula has a butter to flour ratio of 88%. Wouldn’t that turn the dough into a yellow puddle of goo? The thought of ingesting breads that rich makes me shudder and think of Paula Deen.

I really shouldn’t be thinking of brioche as bread in the same category as baguettes or miches but more along the lines of viennoiserie, considered the halfway point between lean breads and rich pastries. Thinking of brioche that way, somewhere in the back of my head I’ll hopefully think “not in one sitting.”

Bread Baking Day: Small Breads hosted by My Diverse Kitchen

recipe adapted from poilane.fr

Poilâne’s Mint Brioche

makes 12 brioches à tête, approximately the size of regular muffins

Ingredients                  Volume          Ounces          Grams
all-purpose flour                 4 cups         17.6          500
granulated sugar                 10 tsp           1.75          50
kosher salt                       1 tbsp           .42          12
instant yeast                     1.5 tsp          .18           5
water, at room temperature        1 cup           8            227
large eggs                        5
butter, at room temperature                       7            200

handful of fresh mint, rinsed and coarsely chopped
1 beaten egg, for glazing

Notes:

• I substituted instant yeast for the active dry yeast suggested in the original formula, using 2/3 of the active dry yeast amount.
• I was thinking of replacing the water with milk but stayed true to the recipe.
• The mixing is done in two steps. Let the dough rest briefly before adding the butter to keep the fat from inhibiting gluten formation.
• I used a 12-cup muffin pan to proof and bake the shaped brioche. No fancy fluted pans in my kitchen, unfortunately.
• My brioches à tête shaping is rather pitiful so I included links to pictures and videos showing the proper procedure below.

Final Dough Instructions:

Mix             Mix the flour, sugar, salt, instant yeast, and water.
                Add the eggs one by one until thoroughly incorporated.

Rest            5 minutes

Mix             Blend in the butter and coarsely chopped mint leaves.

Knead           10-12 minutes

Bulk Ferment    2 hours, at room temperature

Divide          12 pieces

divided mint brioche dough

Shape           brioches à tête (pictures and video)

mint brioche pre-shaped into rolls

pre-shaped brioches à tête

shaped brioches à tête

Final Proof     approximately 1 hour, at room temperature

Preheat Oven    400ºF

Glaze           egg wash (optional)

Bake            Bake for 10 minutes at 400ºF. Rotate if
                necessary and lower the oven temperature to
                350ºF. Bake for another 10 minutes.

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