The cream and strawberry brioches are perfect for enjoying at breakfast, to start the day sweetly. With their soft leavened dough flavored with vanilla, topped with plenty of vanilla cream and fresh strawberries, they are simply irresistible.
Besides strawberries, these brioches are also excellent with blueberries, diced peaches or apricots, raspberries, or even currants, so you can prepare them with different flavors, depending on the season or availability.
The vanilla cream can also be further flavored with some lemon zest if desired and is still very simple to prepare. You can also make it the day before and keep it in the fridge until it’s time to assemble your brioches.
Leftover brioches can also be frozen. In that case, I recommend not sprinkling them with sugar granules before freezing them, but only after thawing and just before serving, as the sugar granules tend to absorb moisture from the strawberries and therefore dissolve.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Rest time: 2 Hours 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 45 Minutes
- Portions: 10 brioches
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon dry yeast
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons vanilla sugar
- 2/3 cup milk (warm)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup butter (at room temperature)
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1/4 cup fresh liquid cream
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- as needed milk (for brushing)
- 1 cup strawberries
- as needed sugar granules
- as needed apricot jam (optional – for brushing)
Steps
To prepare the dough for the cream and strawberry brioches, place the flour, yeast, sugar, vanilla sugar, and warm milk in the bowl of the stand mixer. Start the mixer and add the egg and salt. Knead until the dough is smooth and homogeneous. At this point, add the soft butter in pieces and continue kneading until the dough is well developed, meaning it comes away from the bottom and sides of the bowl and is completely wrapped around the hook.
Remove the dough from the bowl, make two folds, form a ball, and place it back in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours, in a warm place.
To prepare the cream for the brioches, put the milk, cream, and salt in a saucepan. Heat until it begins to boil.
Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks with the sugar, vanilla sugar, and cornstarch until you get a light and creamy mixture. Continuing to whisk, pour the hot liquid slowly over the yolks and work everything until well combined. Pour everything back into the saucepan and heat over medium-low heat, stirring continuously until thickened.
Remove from heat, transfer the cream to a baking dish, cover with plastic wrap in contact with the surface, and let cool completely, ideally for at least an hour in the fridge.
After the dough has rested, divide it into 10 equal pieces. Form a ball about 2 inches in diameter with each piece, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and flatten slightly. Let rise, covered, for another 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, wash, clean, and cut the strawberries into wedges.
Preheat the oven to 355°F (static).
After the dough has rested further, lightly flour the bottom of a glass slightly smaller than the balls you made and press it into the center of each dough ball to make a well, leaving a border of about 1/2 inch. Brush the brioches with some milk.
With the help of 2 teaspoons, distribute the cream into the wells of each brioche (about 1.5 teaspoons of cream per brioche). Flatten the cream slightly and arrange the strawberry wedges on its surface, pressing them gently into the cream.
Bake at 355°F for about 20-25 minutes until the dough is lightly golden.
Remove your brioches from the oven and brush both the dough border, strawberries, and cream with warm apricot jam to make them shiny and even more delicious.
Before serving, sprinkle your cream brioches with sugar granules.
Tips
Instead of apricot jam, to brush your cream brioches after baking, you can also use elderberry jam, for example.
Instead of strawberries, you can use blueberries, currants, raspberries, diced apricots or peaches, or simply a spoonful of jam.
