Cinnamon Swirl Eggless "Brioche"

This month Gayathri of Gayathri's Cook Spot challenged the members of the Eggless Baking group to make an eggless version of Barbara's Cinnamon Swirl Brioche.

My first reaction after reading her mail was, "What ? Brioche without eggs ? Really ? "

Initially I had decided to skip this challenge... but the pretty cinnamon swirl and the simplicity of the recipe kept bringing me back to it until I finally decided to give the eggless version try.

I usually use the combination of yogurt and baking soda to make an eggless version of an eggy bread. However the mere substitution felt a little inadequate for an eggless version of brioche. After all it was brioche.. and no ordinary bread. How could a simple substitution render the bread its richness and textural lightness. I discussed with my mother and she suggested an extra helping of yeast. Okay. I said and pondered a little more... until I remembered Reeni's review about the scalded flour method. She had used the method for making a Scandinavian White Bread and had compared its texture to a brioche... I decided to modify the method to adapt the given recipe..

The adaptation however did not seem direct...

You see, the scalded flour method(SFM) requires one to make a starter of scalded dough which is cooled and then kneaded together with the remaining dough ingredients to make the dough for the bread. This meant, involing the SFM would add an extra step to the suggested recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, thereby depriving it off its ease and simplicity, the two things that had attracted me towards this bread at the first place. I thought for a while and then decided to try a simple modificaion. Instead of making a scalded dough starter, I decided to beat the yogurt with boiling hot water, then quickly stir in the remaining ingredients including the flour to the hot yogurt.  I am not sure if that little step helped, or if it was just the right proportion of liquid to flour, but things suddenly fell into place and  soon I recognized the dough as brioche-like... soft, flow-y and unmanageable. Thereon I followed the given recipe and was duly rewarded with a lovely loaf the following day.

To be honest, the loaf wasn't as soft as a brioche from the store but the texture was comparable. It was somewhat like my Hokkaido Milk Bread.. only richer with all the extra butter. We were really happy with it and relished it with our morning and evening tea everyday till it got over...

Get Your Chef On ~ Chocolate : Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf

Well it is time for yet another GYCO Challenge Reveal ! This month 

Jen of Four Mars and One Venus and

Julie of White Lights on Wednesday

challenged us to create a chocolaty delight. 

though there were numerous chocolate recipes to choose from, it took me a while to decide what i wanted to make for this round of the challenge... and it was Irvin Lin's brilliant photographs that made me finally decide on the 

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf.

it was a good decision because this loaf baked me happy.  it looked gorgeous and tasted divine. 

in fact we were so delighted by how the loaf turned out that following the same recipe i baked a second loaf the next day, this time a chocolate swirl brioche, and took it for my brother's family. needless to say they loved the took of the fancy loaf and were more than happy to dive into it right away. so a big thanks to Jen and Julie for this months challenge. I can now bake marbled and swirled Chocolate Brioche loaves at home ! 

now the recipe of the loaves 

as adapted from Eat the Love and The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook

Marbled Chocolate Brioche Loaf  (Recipe for a 2 pound loaf )

ingredients

for the brioche dough

• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 21/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 1/3 cup semisweet chocochips
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 11 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

1. i made the brioche dough in the bread machine. for that I all the ingredients expect the butter in the machine pan and  programmed it for the dough cycle. 
2. when the machine started on the second knead I added 2 tablespoons of the butter and restarted the dough cycle. as the butter started getting incorporated in the dough I handed another 2 tablespoons of butter and continued this way till all the butter was incorporated into dough. i then let the dough cycle complete. 
3. when the machine beeped at the end of the cycle i inverted the dough into a plastic container and divided the dough into 3 equal parts. next i put 1/3 of the dough back into the bread machine pan along with the ingredients for the chocolate layer. again i programmed the machine for the dough cycle and let it run till all the ingredients were well combined and a smooth chocolaty dough rode on the blade of the pan, about 10 minutes. 
4. i then stopped the machine and stretched the chocolate dough to a 11x6 inch rectangle over a plastic sheet. i then put half of the brioche dough on top of the spread out chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size. next inverting the two layers on another plastic sheet I put the remaining brioche dough on top of the chocolate layer and stretched it to the  same size.
   
   then placing the sandwiched dough in a plastic container i covered it with a plastic cling wrap and transferred the container to the refrigerator. 
5. 7 hours later, i took out the sandwiched dough from the refrigerator, cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from it. then piling the rectangles together in a loaf pan, i covered the pan with a kitchen towel and let the dough double in size. this took about 2 1/2 hours. 
6. once the dough doubled i preheated the oven to 400 degrees F, then egg washed the loaf, sprinkled some sugar on top and in the preheated oven, baked the loaf for 20 minutes. then turning down the oven temperature to 350 degrees F I baked the loaf for another 10 minutes until surface looked golden brown.

i waited for 30 minutes before taking the loaf out of the pan and cut out the first slice after the loaf had cooled down completely. 

Swirled Chocolate Brioche Loaf (Recipe for a 11/2 pound loaf)

for the brioche dough

• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 egg yolks
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter

for the chocolate layer

• 5 tbsp semisweet chocochips
• 2 tsp orange juice
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour 
• 8 cloves (spice) + 1 inch cinnamon stick, ground

• 1 egg for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling on top

what i did

for the swirled brioche loaf i proceeded in the same way as for the marbled loaf except that in step 5, after taking out the dough from the refrigerator, i rolled it out with the rolling pin then folded it as shown in "1st fold"...

then rolled it out again and folded the dough as shown in "2nd fold."i then cut out 1 1/2 x 1/2 inch rectangles from the folded dough and proceeded as above.

the dough before and after the rise...

so those were my gorgeous Chocolate Brioche Loaves. Hope you had as much fun reading about it as i had baking and eating them. Wish me luck for the Challenge and do visit the other delicious entries for this GYCO Chocolate challenge at .....

Four Marrs and One Venus &  White Lights on Wednesday

Until next time...  take care..

These loaves are being Yeastspotted. 
Also sharing these at a couple of weekly food events.