Brioche Sans Tête

With the weather being horrible and the news horrible too I have been resorting to my form of 'cupboard love'.  First I made a batch of marmalade.  With one and a half kilos of fruit and 3k sugar I needed my largest saucepan.  Stored inside it I found my brioche tin, so had a go at that.  It rose well enough but the tête wobbled off to the side and was only just hanging by a thread by the end of baking time. (see second picture) 

Loosing the head

Hanging on!

This has happened before with brioche rolls which I posted about  here,  but the problem seems to have scaled up on this occasion.  Next time I am loading up the tin I will make the top ball smaller than the ones it sits on and squeeze it on as hard as I can!  Needless to say the taste was in no way affected.

 

Off With Their Heads - Brioches à tête

Our recent Sunday favourite has been Brioches à tête.  It involves a Saturday night mix up, an overnight proving in the fridge and then an early start on Sunday.  They taste fantastic straight out of the oven with a teaspoon of jam. This is how they are supposed to look:

The only problem is that the "tête" which was sitting atop the brioche before going into the oven has an unerring tendancy to slide off to the side during baking. The result is comical:

My daughter describes them as turtles... more hippopotomi I would say!

The flavour and texture are in no way compromised by my infantile herding games.

Fortification - Bamburgh Castle

Bamburgh Castle

We visited Bamburgh Castle on the NE Coast of England  this Easter Monday.  The fortifications go back to Napoleonic times and beyond (although its present form owes most to the Victorian age).

 

 

 

 

I made some fortified bread for Easter.  Brioche.  Rather rich and traditionally made with crenellations:

 

 

It didn't last long.

 

Warding off invasion from the sea.

Brioche - A Bit Over the Top

After splashing out on a fluted tin I had no excuse for not trying Brioche for the first time.  I turned out spectacularly:

Here's the top view:

You pile in three dough balls and then pop one on top.  Then after rising and washing with egg,  make a couple of scissor snips before baking. With the leftover dough I tried to shape some smaller ones but they ended up like leaning Towers of Pisa. They still tasted good and were easier to slice through than the big loaf (which did fall apart a bit on slicing).

All the same I think I've justified my £6 spend!