"Low calorie" Brioche

I was down with a bad throat and feeling off yesterday, thanks to all the little people I'm around these days. Took the day off and in the afternoon I was pondering dinner. Fresh roasted tomato soup and bread right out of the oven sounded so good. So good that I made a trip to the store to buy a pound of fresh tomatoes.  Yeah for those of you who don't know me well, I'm kind of particular about my ingredients when I cook or bake. I do try and experiment but I do not compromise. I gotta have the right cheese, the right veggies or whatever. 


Anyway last week I read about Deb's recipe over at smittenkitchen, a blog I follow quite regularly. I've baked bread before but this one included eggs and that had me curious. And moreover she described it as a "light brioche" and I've seen this on TV many many times but in all honesty, have never tasted brioche. Brioche is a french bread typically with a lot of butter and a lot of eggs but this version had a lot fewer of both. 


So, what better way to learn than try it at home eh? I used the basis of her recipe with a couple of modifications.


The result: Flaky, buttery, delicious loaf of glutenous goodness.

Light Brioche


This recipe makes one loaf. 

Ingredients: 
-  2 cups all-purpose flour
-  1 tablespoon sugar
-  1 teaspoon kosher salt
-  1/2 packet active dry yeast
-  3/4 cup milk
-  4 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened (1/2 stick)
-  1 large egg 


Directions: 

1. In a large bowl, mix 3/4 cup flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a mixer.
2. In a saucepan, heat the milk and butter together until the mixture is warm. Gradually pour the warm ingredients into the dry mixture and mix with an electric mixer of stir vigorously by hand with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes. 
3. Add the egg and  another 1/2 cup flour and beat again for 2 minutes by machine or 3 by hand. Add the last of the flour and beat or stir until smooth.
4. Scrape down bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap. Let rise for a couple hours or until doubled. Meanwhile, butter and flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan. I didn't have a loaf pan so I used a 8x8 baking dish instead. Once the dough has doubled, scrape it into the prepared pan. Cover with buttered plastic wrap and let rise for a total of 30 minutes. After 15 minutes, however, remove the plastic and preheat your oven to 375°F.
5. Bake for 35 minutes or until it passes the toothpick/fork test.
6. Cool in pan for 5 minutes then turn out to a rack to cool.
7. Slather on some butter and enjoy

I made roasted tomato/red pepper soup to go with it. Mmmmmm.