Ingredients
500g Foricher T55 Pâtisserie Flour
120g Milk
5 x Eggs
250g Butter
12g Saltan Himalayan Super-Fine (c0.03mm) Pink Rock Salt
40g Sugar
9g LeSaffre DCL Saf-Gold Instant Osmotolerant Yeast
For the filling
55g Cream cheese
55g Pesto
50g Cheese (I used Gruyère but you can use whatever you have to hand)
Tear and share brioche with a pesto and cheesy filling
Having a soft and sumptuous, comforting and tasty brioche that is stuffed with cheese and pesto is a marvellous thing, but to share it is even better.
This is a great way to use up any odd bits of cheese that are knocking about in the fridge. This recipe is with pesto but you could just as easily use tapenade, semi dried tomatoes, Marmite or whatever takes your fancy.
I am lucky enough to have a mixer at home so that makes it a lot easier for me, especially as I have quite warm hands which makes the final mixing of the butter a struggle otherwise. I have used the Osmotolerant yeast which performs much better in enriched doughs than general purpose yeast which is inhibited by the sugar content.
Makes 24 small balls of cheesy delight.
Method
Make sure that your milk is at body temperature then add the yeast and let it dissolve.
Mix the flour and then the eggs into the milk and knead slowly for 5 minutes to incorporate the ingredients evenly.
Knead or, if you are using a mixer, mix the dough for 10 – 15 minutes or until the dough has become homogenous and elastic.
Add a third of the butter and knead/mix until incorporated.
Add the next third of butter and half of the salt and knead/mix until incorporated.
Add the remaining third of butter and the rest of the salt and knead/mix until incorporated and the dough becomes elastic, smooth and shiny.
Leave the dough in your mixing bowl until it has doubled in volume which should take about 2 hours depending on how warm it is.
Knock back the dough by hand by gently kneading it or folding it a few times to take the air out, cover and let proof again but this time covered in the fridge for a few hours (I left mine for 3 1/2 hours, but you can leave it overnight if you want).
Meanwhile mix all the filling ingredients together.
When you are ready to shape the bread take the dough from the fridge and turn it out onto a lightly floured worktop.
Using a dough cutter or scraper divide the dough into 24 even pieces (about 50g each).
Roll the pieces into balls and flatten. Then add one teaspoon of filling (about 6.5g) into the middle of each flattened dough ball and gather the edges up and over the filling making sure they are gently pressed together encapsulating the filling.
Place the dough balls seam side down into your preferred case or tray (I used 4 x 500g Panettone Basso cases with six dough balls in each)
Place somewhere warm to proof until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Brush the dough with egg wash (1 egg yolk to 1 tbsp milk).
Place into the oven and turn the temperature down to 190°C then down to 175°C after 10 minutes.
Bake for about 25 minutes in total or until they are a deep golden brown.
Place them on a cooling rack until cool enough to eat.
You can bake them ahead of time and just gently warm them through in the oven before serving.
