Brioche

While my sister was in town, we made three batches of Brioche.  The plan was to make one batch, but well, sometimes one is just not enough.  I am not sure what we were thinking, but before too long we were laughing at the sheer volume of dough we had filling the counters (rising over the edges of the bowls and draping down over the sides).  We then began planning out the various ways we could use the dough.  The Brioche festivities continued for days, and after all the things we tried, I have decided I really just love this stuff. 

Here are the loaves from the first two batches:

 Brioche is a cross between bread and pastry.  So airy and yet so rich.  Lots of time, eggs, and butter went into this dough.  Did you know that you have to knead Brioche for nearly 25 minutes?

 I loved the Brioche plain.  Like I mentioned, it is so rich!  I also enjoyed it with fruit and honey.

That first night we took two of the loaves and made french toast out of them.  I highly recommend Brioche French Toast.  Too delicious in fact, that I forgot to take a picture.

The next afternoon, we had sandwiches on one of the loaves.  While you might tend to think of Brioche as sweet, it is not.  Our sandwiches consisted of avocado, spinach, tomatoes, and ham.  Again, I was too engrossed with the flavors to pull out my camera. 

Well, what did we end up doing with the last batch of Brioche dough?  Think butter.  A LOT more butter.  And brown sugar too.  But that will have to wait for another day . . .

In short, brioche is my new bakery friend.