Sweet Brioche Rolls

Bread is delicious. I absolutely love brioche but then my partner told me that the brioche we got wasn’t like the one he remembered. He remembered it sweeter. And so began my journey to find the right recipe to make the perfect sweet brioche roll. I am not sure if this is it but this version is pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Check out the Make section of MCG for more fun recipes like desserts and savory dishes.

Brioche is an enriched dough (which I’m pretty sure means: has more ingredients than water, flour, yeast and salt). Due to this, it takes more time to rise because the yeast needs more time to activate. The total recipe will take about six hours but less than an hour of that will be active time.

After gathering all the ingredients, I needed three different bowls. In one bowl, the water, milk, sugar and yeast are added together. This lets the yeast activate and dissolve to mix evenly since the water and milk are warm.

And there is something satisfying about pouring sugar and yeast into a bowl of liquid. Or maybe that’s just me. This mixture will sit on the side for five minutes while the other ingredients are prepared. There will be some visuals of the yeast blooming in the liquid before dissolving.

The next mixture to prepare is mixing the flour, salt and butter. I like to use room temperature butter as this will allow the butter to crumble into the powdered mixture. For this step, I started with the stand mixer (using the dough hook) and then finished by crumbling in the butter by hand. While using a mixer is convenient, it is not necessary to make this dough. Although, this dough gets very sticky so be prepared to have a mess on your hands!

An egg should also be prepared in a separate bowl. This egg should be beaten and set aside. After five minutes, stir the yeast mixture to make sure it is fully dissolved. Then is it time to add everything into the mixer to make our dough!

Again, this dough is very stick – for those using a mixer it is good to have a spatula on hand to scrape down the sides. The dough should be stirred for about 5-8 minutes until it comes together as a dough.

Because the dough for the Brioche roll is so sticky, it is difficult to shape so I would recommend gently pushing it into a ball like shape before covering the dough with a wet towel and letting it sit to rest.

After the dough has double in size, it’s time for the fun (and kind of hard) part: shaping! Turn out the dough onto a highly floured surface. It’s going to stick no matter what but the flour can help prevent this.

Also, I would recommend flouring your hands just to help “shape” the dough. The dough should be divided into eight pieces or more if you want smaller buns. I just eyeballed the divide but you can measure this step if you want to get perfectly uniform buns.

Roughly shape the dough into balls and place them on a cooking tray lined with parchment. It’s okay if these are pretty because it will even out later. The dough should be covered (I like using the same wet towel from before) and left to rest for another one to two hours.

About an hour ahead of time, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F with a pan on the bottom rack. I just put my bread directly in but you can use another egg to do an egg wash if desired.

This bread has a lovely color even without the egg wash. Before putting the dough into the oven, place one half cup of water into the pan to create steam. This will just the dough a softer texture. I ended up cooking my dough for about twenty minutes but that just depends on the oven.

Let the brioche roll cool before diving in! I love these as they are rich and tasty. We like to use them to make grilled cheese but they can be used for burgers or any other type of sandwich. Or just eat them by themselves since they are simply delicious.