Christmas Morning & Brioche!

Christmas.

I love it.

I'm only nervous for when I start my own family. I fear that my house will look like a Winter Wonderland ever year, well, maybe just for one year, which isn't even a bad thing, until I realize how much work it is putting up Christmas Cheer and then taking it all down.

But all in all, Christmas and I love each other dearly. I love all of the baking, Christmas tunes, twinkly lights, happiness, movies (aka The Griswold's)...

Merry Christmas to me!!

And now for the brioche. Or as I purposely & wrongly pronounce it- (bree-o-chee)!

I'm oddly obsessed with all french foods (mainly desserts) at the moment... macarons, brioche, mille feuille... you name it, I want to bake it. I saw a delicious looking bread braid on Pinterest and rest assured, Rémi workin' @ da pâtisserie. Or the kitchen. At her house.

Here's what you'll need:
-1 2/3 cup flour
-4 1/2 tablespoons butter (and extra for the baking dish)
-2 eggs
-1 tablespoon dry yeast
-1/3 cup warm milk
-1 pinch of salt (unless you use salted butter)
-nonstick spray

Start with a nice big beautiful bodacious bowl. Then throw in your flour!

Man oh man. Here we go. Next comes the yeast!

 

 

It's quite ironic how I measured the yeast packet into my measuring spoon and it basically fit... so if you use a packet, don't worry about measuring- throw it in!

Now we have to make a bit of a basin after stirring the flour and yeast about.

Wow! Did a meteor hit!? Look at that crater! Let's add milk.

Stunning. Next, I threw in all of the other ingredients. Most people would probably use a stand mixer, but REMI DOESN'T HAVE A STAND MIXER. I just used my hands. The dough was more tacky than your aunt's Christmas sweater.

After playing patty cakes for what seemed like 45 minutes to my upper body, I momentarily lost my Christmas Joy and said "WHATEVER YOU PERSNICKITY DUMB PIECE OF BREAD STUPID THING YOU BIG IDIOT" and threw the dough into a Pam'd bowl.

Then I put a dish cloth over Mr. B and let him take a nap. A rather long siesta to be frank. 2 hours!!

Look at him all cozy in there! I did unfortunately have to wake him up...

The brioche went back on to the parchment paper to be rolled out.

You want to roll it into a large rectangle! It'd be like you're making cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon roll brioche... May need to try that in 2026 when I have a stand mixer!

Next comes the Nutella. Spread it ALL OVER!

The lovely part is that it can be super-de-duper messy looking.

Next we roll, roll, roll the bread, gently... into a cylinder? I'll work on that song.

Make sure to give the edge a nice big pinch!

Now comes the fun part. RIP THE BREAD TO SHREDS!

Just kidding, cut 3 strips so that we can braid them.

By the way, this step works best when you have on Christmas pajamas, and you also want to smash your gut onto the counter to keep the parchment paper in place.

Then you braid it, or just throw it around, or just do whatever with it.

This was a bit challenging... the crime scene shows there may have been some fowl play judging by the Nutella spattered ground. We'll keep moving though.

Spread some butter into a baking dish.

Add then we reverse snake-charm the braided bread into the baking dish.

I refrigerated the brioche over night, although once you let it rest 10 minutes after playing with it, you can bake it. 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then drop the heat down to 350 degrees and bake it for another 20 minutes. I think next time I'll shorten the baking time because I prefer my bread a bit more... rawish.

It sure was yummy :)

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! And I hope you befriend Mr. Brioche also!