The 'Un' Brioche Loaf

This week I decided to make my first brioche. Classically made with white flour, butter and egg combination, brioche is a very lovely soft buttery white bread. The high quantity of butter and egg gives it a soft and tender crumb and lends itself very nicely for french toast, jam or butter spreads. If it goes stale, don't worry brioche is the perfect bread for bread pudding. I used my current favorite bread baking book, Artisan Bread in Five minutes and looked up their wheat brioche recipe.

I used their brioche recipe which called for 'white' wheat flour. Ever heard of this? You've probably seen it on commercials for- wheat bread which looks like white. It is essentially a blend or even a compromise on whole wheat flour and white AP flour, where the appearance, color and some of the soft qualities of white flour is preserved while providing the nutrients of whole wheat. It is also not an easy ingredient to find in local grocery stores.

I didn't use white wheat flour as the original recipe asked for, instead I just used regular whole wheat. I wanted to see how different it would be and disappointingly the brioche could no longer be called brioche. It didn't have the soft loveliness of brioche that I knew and expected. Instead, it was what I would call 'Whole Wheat Soft Honey Sandwich' bread.

 

Even though the bread turned out to be unbrioche-like. It still was the softest wheat bread I had made and for that it was a hit...