Making brioche feuilletes

One of the things I learned to bake when I went to Paris a couple of years ago was a very unique pastry called a brioche feuillete. It starts with rich brioche dough, full of eggs and butter, and then after chilling for 12 hours, it is rolled out and a sheet of cold butter is laid across the center of the dough, and the dough is folded over the butter. Then roll, turn, roll, fold again, and on and on as if you were making puff pastry. However, the base for puff pastry is just flour, salt and water. By starting with brioche dough you end up with a dough that is unbelievably rich, tender and flaky.

I have found that making a pan of cinnamon rolls out of the same dough takes a lot less time, and my customers seem to like them just as well. Here are pictures of Friday's baking, starting with the poolish, which sat in my counter last night and was the base of the dough I made this morning, all the way through taking the finished product out of the oven.

I teach classes on making French baguettes, and have been asked to teach making feuilletes as well, but I'm not sure how I would pull that off. Maybe someday.

Poolish

Next morning, eggs and milk in bowl

Add flour, sugar, poolish, salt, yeast and mix well

Add 250 grams (a little over 2 sticks) soft butter to dough

Mash butter and add a piece at a time

All butter added, now chill for 12 hours.

Flatten chilled dough by beating with rolling pin

Flatten 125 g of very cold, hard butter

This is messy! Flour flies everywhere

Butter on middle third of dough

Make a package with butter inside

Roll and fold - hard work!

Do it again - two folds each time

Chill for a half hour

Roll out to form pastries - cut for feuilletes

These are about 125 g each

Braid them, then curl them up

and put in buttered ring mold

Roll out dough for cinnamon rolls, sprinkle with sugar & cinnamon

Ready to proof

Into the oven

Baked!

Voila! Brioche feuilletes