Steps for Braids with Pomegranate Recipe

• Let’s start the preparation of the recipe by taking the bowl of the stand mixer and pouring the two previously sifted flours into it. Add the amount of white sugar and stir with your hands or a spoon. At this point, break the eggs, keeping one whole egg and one yolk in a small bowl while keeping the egg white in another small bowl. Both eggs should be at room temperature. Place the bowl of the stand mixer with the flours and sugar on its base and insert the dough hook. Start the machine at the minimum speed and slowly pour in the lightly beaten egg with the yolk using a fork and let it work.

  Now take the softened butter at room temperature and, using a spoon, add it to the bowl in small pieces slowly and patiently. Keep in mind that from when you start the stand mixer until the end of the process, it will take about 10 minutes. Then add the scant tablespoon of honey.

  

• While the machine is working to incorporate the butter, we’ll focus on the milk and yeast. Take the yeast sachet, in my case dry but you can also use seven grams of fresh yeast, and dissolve it in the room temperature milk. Also, add the vial or sachet of vanilla. I used a large glass and mixed everything with a spoon. Then slowly pour it into the bowl and let the stand mixer work.

  After a few minutes and especially before the dough fully clings to the hook, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and finally add the previously deseeded pomegranate seeds into the bowl. Continue working the brioche dough at the minimum speed until it detaches itself from the sides of the bowl. Now let’s take a wooden board and proceed as follows.

  

• Dust the surface of the board with flour and grease your hands with some seed oil. Remove our dough from the bowl and work it quickly to turn it into a nice soft and sticky ball, dust the bottom of the stand mixer’s bowl with flour and place the ball back in it. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let it rest for the first rise in the oven turned off with the light on. The first rise should last at least 3 hours but if you can extend it to 4 hours like I did, it’s definitely better. Keep in mind that every time you prepare a leavened dough, the longer you can extend the rising times, the softer your sweet will be, and it will lose the smell of yeast. During this time, I: tidied up the house, walked the dog, prepared lunch, edited the first piece of the video recipe, shared with you on social channels the Recipe of the Day, and had lunch! Optimize your time!

  Once the first rise time has passed, you need to take the wooden board again, dust with flour, and lightly knead the brioche dough ball. Now you need to divide the dough, using a metal dough scraper, into small balls of about 90 grams each. You should have 8 to 9 balls. They will be 8 or 9 brioche braids with pomegranate seeds. From each ball, you must then derive three pieces of dough, which you must then stretch by hand into serpentine shapes, like when making gnocchi, and then braid the three strands of dough. The outer part towards the inside as when you braid hair. This step is certainly easier to show you in the video recipe than to write here in words. But I think everyone has made a braid in their life, from the scooby doo braids we used to make when I was a kid to the hair braids of us women.

  

• Place the brioche braids with pomegranate on baking trays covered with baking parchment. I arranged three braids per tray to leave space for rising and baking for each brioche. Now, take the small bowl where you set aside the egg white, add a little milk, and with a brush, moisten the surface of our beautiful pomegranate braids. Then sprinkle each with brown sugar, sugar sprinkles, and if you have them, add berry drops. I found them at the supermarket where I work, they are perfect for desserts. If you’re curious, you can also find the recipe of the robiole plumcake with berry drops that I published some time ago.

  Place the trays in the oven turned off with the light on for the second rise. If you don’t have time, let them rise for at least an hour, if you have more time, wait two hours. I did a middle ground, having to finish recording the video recipe I waited about an hour and thirty minutes, I was at risk of losing daylight for the final presentation. After this time, we are finally ready for baking the braids with pomegranate in the dough. Preheat the oven to 350°F in static mode and wait for it to reach temperature. Then bake one tray at a time, and again, you don’t need to rush. Baking varies from 15 to 20 minutes. As I tell you in all my recipes where the baking is expected in the oven, my oven is old and temperamental. So around 15 minutes my pomegranate braids were already well-cooked and golden. Do the toothpick test before removing the tray from the oven and proceed with the baking of the other braids. Once baked, you should leave the pomegranate braids to cool on a cooling rack. This will prevent them from continuing to absorb heat from the tray and create that dark and unpleasant bottom on the base of the desserts.

  Let them cool slightly and then your braids with pomegranate seeds are ready to be enjoyed! I didn’t add powdered sugar, but there’s nothing stopping you from doing so; we prefer them more natural. All I have left is to remind you that I await you here on my cooking blog every day with many easy, quick, and delicious recipes and on social channels with the Recipe of the Day every morning!!! I wish you a good appetite!!!