A new venture in the kitchen

When my cousin Ruth and I were in Paris, we went to a bread baking class.  My baguettes are definitely better since that class. I learned so much! But we didn't just do baguettes. We also did brioche and a couple of other breads.

Yesterday I made brioche dough for the first time. This is all new territory. It was HARD! While I was teaching a class on making baguettes, I remember saying often, "There's nothing to this!  You can do it."  Well, maybe, but I got a taste of how each of my students will feel the first time they make a baguette on their own at home. I am already mentally making my next batch of brioche dough, correcting several mistakes of the novice.

Tonight I rolled out the dough and rolled 2-1/2 sticks of cold butter into it, making layers for a roll called a brioche feuillete.  It is a delightful cross between puff pastry and sweet dough.

I bought rings to put the formed rolls in at Dehillerans in Paris. More about that here. I only had a dozen rings, so with the remaining dough I formed some cinnamon rolls with walnuts and raisins. I'm leaving them in the fridge for a slow rise until morning, when I will be baking them along with six baguettes, all for the farmers market. But the brioche feuillete are in the oven right now. They are so full of butter that they will hold just fine until morning!

Tomorrow morning, the display on the counter at market will be quite nice. Six baguettes, 12 brioche feuilletes, and 12 cinnamon rolls, much more than I usually do. I hope my customers like them. Need to work on sizing. I'm a stickler for weighing things, but I obviously didn't do it with these. They are small, medium and large, not intentionally! Next time . . .

On the cooling rack