Brioches à tête

One of my personal intentions for this year is to find new ways to include in our weeks the things that I truly love. As the mother of a young child it is so easy to feel a little lost, a little like Rosy the Jetson’s Robot Maid, shuffling around attending to the needs of everyone else.

Earlier this spring, one of my favorite food bloggers, Pinch My Salt, invited her readers to participate in the BBA Challenge. Together over a hundred folks from all over the world are baking our way through a fabulous guide called The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart. It sounded like so much fun that I bought two copies, one for myself and one for my mother. She and I have been working at a slower pace than many of the other bakers in the group but it has truly been fun. And a challenge.

Today I made my first attempt at Middle-Class Brioche, a compromise between the Rich Man’s Brioche, which calls for a pound of butter, and the Poor Man’s Brioche, which calls for only one stick of butter.

I have never…

That is just about all I have to say.

The dough was so silky and melty. The loaves were perfectly golden and crisp and hollow. Looking at them, just out of the oven, made me wish I had a batch of homemade jam; Trader Joe’s Lemon Curd would have to suffice. The five year-old in our lives stuffed warm chunks of bread into his cheeks for the majority of the late afternoon, offering me the unforeseen benefit of a few minutes of quiet. My husband interrupted himself in the middle of a sentence at dinner to say, “Oh. This bread is really good.”  Then we all stopped talking.

It felt like that scene in the film Julie and Julia where Julia and Paul Child gobble up her fish in buttery wine sauce, moaning and dribbling with delight. Isn’t that when Meryl Streep says, “French people eat French food every single day!”?

A challenge in the kitchen helps me feel human, helps me feel like me. I wonder what keeps you tied to yourself?

Comments

[Frieda]

Great post & beautiful bread! You are so sweet to get a copy for your mom! Welcome to the BBA...saw you on Twitter. Happy Baking~

[Beverly]

Love your blog. Your Mom gave me the address. I am her friend from college.
Anyway I have bought the bread book after talking to JoAnn. Made the ciabotta
and it took me all day and then some. It did not turn out like the picture, probably because I didn't fix the hearth like you should but used ice cubes instead. I just looked at the bioche and think that will be my next attempt.

[Emily]

Thanks, Frieda! We are going a little slowly but lovely the recipes!

[Emily]

Beverly, thanks for reading!! You will LOVE the brioche bread. I get teary just thinking about it :-) Let me know how yours turns out.