24 October 2007

Strawberry jam mini brioches

mini brioche à la fraise

Sometimes ago I became obsessed by owning a copy of Larousse des desserts (the French equivalent of a gastronomical (dessert in this case) encyclopaedia), written under the supervision of the god of all pastry men, women, child, and passionate in the world, Pierre Hermé.
Stated this, I trusted the book like a bible, like the ultimate dessert recipe collection, along with the basic recipe.
I have to say I’ve made brioche (in the French meaning of the word), but never with this recipe. And I don’t know… The taste was the one of the brioche, but the texture wasn’t. In fact my husband (who is not very keen on pastry making, but it’s a scientist, so on some matters I certainly trust him!) said that the problem could be the flour. As I used normal white flour, may be the recipe was for stronger flour… The fact is that I haven’t trust my feelings (adding more flour), but I followed the book… Something I shouldn’t have done… Anyway, I think that if you add enough flour to the recipe I’m giving you, just to obtain a consistent, elastic and smooth dough, you should arrive to the right consistency… BUT if you are yeast/flour/patisserie challenged, do not attempt even to think about it!

This recipe was made among a series of Jam recipes I'm realizing for work, "to help" the tasting panel to get rid of all the jams they are tasting! As if they need it!


5 g of fresh yeast
190 g of flour

20 g of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs

150 g of butter, room temperature

Strawberry jam


Crumble the yeast and mix it with flour and sugar. Add the eggs one by one, kneading each entirely in the dough before to add the next. Add the diced butter little by little and keep on kneading (if at this point your dough is too wet, add flour).
Let the dough rest for 2 hours, then punch it, knead it a little, and let it rise more.
Scoop a little of the dough into a muffin mould, add over it a little spoon of jam. Cover with more dough and let it rise again.
Preheat the oven at 150° C and bake the mini brioche until risen and golden.

Mini brioche à la fraise