Single girl’s brioche

Pain au lait. Poor man’s brioche, or in my case, single girl’s brioche. Less butter not because of the price to my wallet, but because of the price to my hips.

My February project was bread baking. First came bagels, and then, pain au lait. Because I eat so many bagels, making my own was a fun challenge. Making pain au lait was a nod to the wonderful sweet bread I ate while in Vietnam, specifically that at Pat a Chou in Ho Chi Minh City.

I had gone done a path to make brioche but while looking for a recipe, I was put off by how temperamental the dough sounded. I’m a novice, so words like “stubborn” scare me. Having had pain au lait in Vietnam and knowing that it contains less butter than brioche, I thought it might be a good second best thing to try. But finding a recipe was not easy. I found few, and most were in French. In the end, the recipe I went with was quite easy and produced a beautiful dough. I have found mixing and kneading by hand to be so satisfying and almost magical. All you need is good music blasting and rolled-up sleeves. Et voila! Pain au lait.

Pain au Lait
Adapted from The Fresh Loaf

2 teaspoons instant yeast
0.75 cup water
3.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons powdered milk
4 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
6 tablespoons butter, softened

In a large bowl combine the yeast, flour, salt, powdered milk, and sugar. Add the water and eggs and mix until ingredients are combined. Add the softened butter and mix or knead until the ingredients are thoroughly combined. I kneaded for about 5-10 minutes.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise until doubled in size (approximately 1 to 1.5 hours). Punch the dough down, return it to the bowl and cover it again, and place it in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, I took half the dough and divided it into three baguette like shapes*. I wrapped each in plastic wrap before placing them in a freezer bag and then into the freezer. The other half of the dough, I rolled out and cut into small squares to make small buns.

I let the buns rise for about an hour until they were puffy. I glazed them with a simple egg wash, sprinkled them with fleur de sel and put them in an oven preheated to 385 degrees. I baked them around 15 minutes, until they were golden brown.

*Knowing that a full recipe would make a lot of bread, I decided to try my hand at freezing the dough. I had no problems in the three subsequent bakings. I pulled the dough out of the freezer the night before and let it thaw in the fridge. I followed a proofing trick I learned in a NAIT class to quicken the second proof: Place a pan of boiling water on the bottom shelf of your cold oven and place the dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet in the oven for the proofing time. When puffy, take the dough out and preheat your oven. Take the pan of water out before baking your bread. I made braids and buns.