Friday Food & Wine Finds: September 10, 2010

Happy Friday! I'm currently writing this dispatch from the glamorous Des Moines airport, where the vast food and beverage choices would make your head spin. OK, I'm kidding. There's a coffee shop, and that's about all I can say. But luckily, I'm off to San Antonio today and looking forward to some excellent Tex-Mex food. Anyone have recommendations for me? Leave them in the comments!

On to the food and wine finds...

This NY Times article describes the recent rise of boozy ice cream drinks. Um, with all due respect to the Times, I'm pretty sure my roommates and I invented boozy ice cream drinks back in college. Captain Morgan ice cream floats, anyone?

Recipe: Homemade Brioche

Brioche has a dense, slightly sweet taste that makes it a great base for bread pudding, which I tend to make all the time. It seems I can never find brioche when I need it for a recipe, but luckily it's not hard to make from scratch. If brioche isn't readily available in your local grocery store, it's worth the effort to make your own.

I researched a couple of different baking methods and ended up with the recipe below - it makes one loaf plus enough for 12 individual brioches baked in a muffin tin (or two loaves). Of course, you could easily halve the recipe if you don't need this much on your hands!

Homemade Brioche
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp active dry yeast, or 2 packets
5 oz (10 tbsp) butter at room temperature
2/3 cup warm milk
4 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk and a dash sugar for glaze

In a mixer with a dough hook, combine flour with yeast, then add warm milk in a slow stream.  Mix in sugar and salt, then add the softened butter one tablespoon at a time.  Add the eggs one by one, making sure that each egg is completely mixed in before adding the next. Work the dough just until it starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Transfer to a greased bowl, then cover dough and leave it in a warm place until it doubles in size, about two hours (or, as I did, hold it on your lap during the car ride to Okoboji.  I do not particularly recommend this method).  Punch down dough and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove the dough and let rest, covered, for 15 minutes on a floured countertop.  Divide dough in half.

Divide the first half into four balls and arrange in a greased loaf pan.  Divide the second half into twelve balls placed into a greased muffin tin. Cover both pans and let rise in a warm place for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Use a kitchen scissors to make small cuts in the top of each ball, then brush the brioches with beaten egg yolk mixed with a little sugar. 

Bake smaller brioches for 15-20 minutes and loaf for 30-35 minutes.

Remove all from baking pans and allow to cool on a rack.