French Fridays with Dorie- Brioche Caramel Cinnamon Rolls

Clearly, I’ve been slacking on the Dorie action lately.  I mean, I’ve been MAKING the challenge items…really, I have.  I just haven’t been POSTING them.  Potato chip tortilla?  Check.  Pictures, and/or witty anecdotes involving said tortilla?  Not so much…and I’ve made it twice!  It’s a good think French Fridays doesn’t have a posting requirement, or my butt would have gotten kicked out about a month ago.

The month of December was super busy in my house, I felt like I was constantly running from one thing to the next.  Not so good for the creative blogging…and not to mention the fact that I’ve discovered the addictive world of converting old t-shirts into dresses for my children.  Between the playdates, holidays, and running to Michael’s to get thread, I was a bad bad blogger last month.  One of my resolutions for the new year is to be better about blogging.  I figure I have a better chance of actually keeping that one than the one about exercising more…

The inaugural French Fridays assignment of the year is one of my favorites, Bubble Top Brioche.  I’ve made this recipe several times before, and I must say, I’ve had much better luck with it than any other brioche recipe I’ve tried.  I’m fond of the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe because it’s just so darned quick, but there’s something not quite right about the texture.  It’s more cake-y than bread-y, which combined with the relative sweetness and richness of the dough, makes the resulting brioche great for things like breakfast pastries and hamburger buns, but not so good for just eating as is.  Dorie’s recipe, on the other hand, makes the iconic, rich, slightly sweet, brioche, with a fabulous pull-apart texture, a true bread, not a cake.

Since I’ve made this recipe before, I decided to gild the lily this time, and make a lovely batch of caramel pecan rolls.   I also made one slight addition to the dough itself:  I added about 2 tablespoons sour cream with the butter based on another brioche dough recipe I’ve used.  The acid in the sour cream is supposed to help the dough stay even more tender and melting in texture.

The basic brioche dough recipe goes like this:  Mix flour, yeast, milk, eggs, sugar, and salt together to form a dough.  Then beat in butter of varying amounts, depending on how rich you want your dough to be, and knead (this is DEFINITELY a recipe where a stand mixer is nigh-irreplaceable…) for ten minutes until the dough is elastic and makes an audible “slap” against the sides of the bowl.  Then let the dough rest for two hours, punching it down every half an hour or so, until it stops rising.  Let it chill overnight in the fridge, and then shape your dough, do a final rise, and bake.

I followed the steps above up until the point where I was shaping my dough.  At that point, I rolled the dough into a rectangle, 18 inches by about 13 inches (the length is the important measurement here, so you get 12 evenly cut rolls, 1 1/2 inches high) spread 1 stick of softened butter evenly over the whole surface of the dough, sprinkled over enough cinnamon to cover the butter, and then spread the top with an even layer of brown sugar.  The whole thing was rolled up with the help of my silpat, and cut into the aforementioned 1 1/2 inch slices.  The slices were evenly spaced in a parchment lined 9×13 inch pan, and left to rise until they were puffy and didn’t spring back when they were poked gently, about an hour.  After baking at 375 degrees for about 35 minutes, the rolls were done.  I was planning on making a cream cheese type glaze for them, when my husband very astutely pointed out that I had a whole bowl of caramel pecan sauce in the fridge.  So that became the topping, and after transferring the buns to a serving dish, I poured the warmed caramel sauce over the top. Since the rolls were still warm, the caramel glazed them without getting too goopy, and made for a really nice addition.

The dough, rolled out.

My ersatz cinnamon shaker

The dough, buttered, cinnamon-ed, sugared, rolled, and prepped for rising

Caramelly-cinnamony-brioche-y goodness

I can’t wait to see what all the rest of the Doristas did with this wonderful brioche recipe.  Some of their adventures can be found here. Happy New Year to all the wonderful folks joining me on my French Friday adventures!