Cream brioche, super soft oven-baked brioche filled with delicious custard, a kind of doughnut, but without frying, with luscious vanilla custard with a good vanilla aroma. Preparing brioche is simple, but it requires good kneading to make them as soft as a cloud, perfect for filling with lots of cream. I love kneading by hand and by initially working the ingredients with a spoon, I manage to achieve great results just like using a stand mixer, but if you don’t want to put in the effort, you can prepare the dough directly in a stand mixer, but if you follow the order I did, you’ll get an even better dough.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Cheap
- Rest time: 5 Hours
- Preparation time: 40 Minutes
- Portions: 12
- Cooking methods: Stovetop, Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for Cream Brioche
Cream Brioche
- 2 1/4 cups manitoba flour or strong all-purpose flour
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- 2 medium eggs
- 5 g fresh yeast
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 tsp wildflower honey
- to taste lemon zest
- to taste vanilla
- egg for glazing
- 3 cups milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup starch
- to taste vanilla
- to taste lemon zest
Tools
- 2 Bowls
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Dough scraper
- 1 Work surface
- 2 Baking sheets
- 2 Parchment paper
- 1 Small pot
- 1 Kitchen spatula
- 1 Pastry bag
- 2 Plastic wrap
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Brush
Steps for Preparing Cream Brioche
Preparing brioche
In a large bowl, put the yeast with the milk and stir with a spoon to dissolve it well. Then add sugar, eggs, honey, flavorings, grated lemon zest, and a bit of vanilla, mix, and then add the flour a little at a time, working the mixture well with a spoon especially when it is softer. Once all the flour is added, add the butter, melt it and add it cold. Continue working until you obtain a nice soft but not sticky dough, working on a surface. This phase is very important, good kneading makes the dough elastic and non-sticky, even if soft.
Seal the dough using a little flour and let it rise in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 3-5 hours, I do it in the oven with a pot of warm water.
Once the dough has risen, deflate it, work it on a surface by doing a couple of turns of folding at least 10 minutes apart. Then reform a dough ball and divide it into 12 pieces, about 3 oz each.
With lightly floured hands, form smooth balls, working the dough pieces one at a time, rolling them between your hands.
Let them rise on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, 6 brioche per sheet, spaced apart. Let rise in the oven with a pot of warm water and the light on for about 1 hour.
Brush with egg after rising, before baking, and bake in a preheated static oven at 350°F for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool, meanwhile bake the last set of brioche, one sheet at a time.
In a small pot, put the starch with the sugar and eggs, mix to obtain a lump-free cream, then add the milk slowly, stirring to avoid lumps. Add lemon zest to flavor, only the yellow part, and vanilla. I used extract drops and added it at the end of cooking.
Bring the cream to a boil, stirring with a spatula. Pour the cream into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it cool.
With a pointed tip for pastry bag poke holes in the brioche on the surface, and with the cream in the pastry bag with a regular nozzle, fill the brioche with plenty of cream, squeeze out as much cream as possible from the pastry bag to fill the brioche well.
The brioche should not be empty, but with a soft crumb that moves when filled, creating space for the cream, and if the dough is well worked, they will be nice and filled with cream, almost as if they were empty inside.
The brioche can be stored in the fridge once filled. You can also store them empty at room temperature, covered with a glass dome, and fill them as needed, this way you only keep the cream in the fridge. If the brioche becomes a bit hard, they can be quickly reheated in the oven, or for a few seconds in the microwave, and then filled, it all depends on how they are worked, and for this reason, if you prefer, you can use the stand mixer.
