BBA #4 - Brioche

This was... well, a minor failure. Things went wrong at just about every step, but the final product tasted alright. I'm pretty sure it did, anyway, brioche isn't one of my favorites so I'm not exactly sure what it "should" be.

Last night I started the sponge. Problem one came when the sponge didn't get as bubbly as I'd hoped. No idea why! I decided to continue, thinking that maybe it was supposed to be like that - after all, what do I know about brioche? So I added in the eggs and stirred in the flour, salt, and sugar. Then it was time to add the butter.

Problem number two. I don't have a stand mixer, so I had to do this by hand. It was getting later, I was tired, and the Husband actually had time to talk, so I did this all while on the phone as well. When I gave up, the butter wasn't fully incorporated, but my hands were covered in blistered and I was done! So I spread it out on the tray (note: do NOT forget to spray with oil before covering with plastic wrap!) and popped it into the fridge.

This morning when I checked on the dough, I was pretty sure that it wasn't right. It didn't seem as hard as what I'd seen from bloggers who have reached this point before me. I wasn't sure if the earlier problems had caused this, or if 16 hours chilling wasn't enough. Whatever, I figured, I've gone this far. See how it comes out. So I maneuvered the dough into the pans and set it to rise.

This took hours.

And hours.

And more hours.

By this point, I have my casiatello just about ready to go into the pans (pans which the brioche is still occupying), so I pop the darned things in the oven. They rose a little more, but never crested the pans. Despite their compressed exteriors, the interior looks alright. But I do have to say, it was pretty nasty how much grease came off these things as they were cooling. I don't think that I will be trying this one again, at least not any time soon!