Honestly, my favorite thing in the world to make now is brioche, ever since I made that raspberry jam swirled brioche a few months ago.I know it’s kind of time consuming but it’s just delicious. Delicious and I think watching the bread churn in the stand mixer for 30 minutes is kind of relaxing. Maybe that’s just me though. But this time I wanted to make this brioche SLIGHTLY healthier (it’s not actually healthy, it’s like 100% butter), so I made whole wheat brioche rolls.
These little guys are so delicious and light and because I used white whole wheat it’s less nutty than the flavor you think of when you think whole wheat. Basically, they’re slightly less of a guilty pleasure =). Then swirled with a filling of choice (I used caramelized peaches in this recipe, which didn’t 100% go because the brioche isn’t sweet enough to balance the tart), it gives you a perfect bite of light brioche and delicious filling.
If you head over to that raspberry brioche post, you’ll see the steps to day 1 of making this bread in picture form. I totally forgot to photograph day 1 of this round, sorry! But day 2 you’ll pull the dough out of the fridge and find something like this:
Delicious looking. Then you want to divide it in half, and divide that half into 6 pieces (so you’ll end up with 12 pieces of dough after you divide both halves). If you have a kitchen scale, it would come in handy here, otherwise just eyeball it. Return the dough you’re not working with to the fridge, and on a lightly floured surface, roll one of the pieces out into a long, thin rectangle.
Then, along the middle of the rectangle add your filling – chocolate and marshmallow fluff, any kind of jam, nutella, just some fruit, cheese, really whatever.
You can go a little heavier than I did. My filling was chunky peaches so I went a little light. Then you want to roll it up like a cigar:
And then cut it in half:
Then, you want to take the center bit, with the exposed filling, and roll it in, to get a snail shell shape:
And put it in a muffin tin. Repeat with all the other pieces of dough. Until you have 24 little rolled up brioches
Cover your tins with plastic wrap and let rise for 90 minutes to 2 hours until nice and puffy
Then you give them a nice egg wash and bake for 20 minutes. Then enjoy these light, buttered, filled rolls.
The fact that these are whole wheat really doesn’t effect the flavor at all. They’re so delicious, so light, so buttery, so so so good.
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups white whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp yeast (instant or dry-active - both have been tested and work fine as written)
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp vital wheat gluten
- 1/2 cup milk
- 3 extra large
- 1 tsp salt
- 10 tbsp butter, softened
- 3 tbsp butter, browned
- 1 large egg + 1 tsp water (for the egg wash)
- A filling of choice (jam, nutella, whole fruit, chocolate, chocolate+marshmallow, cheese, whatever)
Instructions
- Lightly oil a large bowl. Then, if you haven't already, brown 3 tablespoons of butter. and get it in the fridge to cool.
- Next, stir the flour and yeast together in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the sugar, milk, wheat gluten, eggs, and salt. With the dough hook in place, mix on low (2) until combined, this will take 3-4 minutes.
- Set a timer for 25 minutes and, while the mixer stays on low speed, add the butter half a tablespoon at a time, allowing it to fully incorporate with each addition. (I added the brown butter with about 15 minutes left.) When the timer goes off, all butter should be incorporated, but if you just added the last bit, allow it to mix for another minute to combine.
- Scrape down the bowl and remove the dough from the dough hook. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat down into a square. Then fold the left side over to the right, the right side over to the left, the top down to the bottom, then the bottom up to the top. Put the dough, seam side up, in the oiled bowl and cover loosely with cling wrap for one hour.
- At the end of the hour, punch down the dough and refold. Return it to the bowl, cover tightly with cling wrap and put the bowl in the fridge for at least 6 hours and no more than 48. This will allow the dough to ferment and develop flavors, I left mine for a little over 24 hours and it was perfect.
- Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Place 1 piece on a lightly floured surface and return the rest to the fridge. Roll that dough out into a long thin rectangle.
- Add the filling to the dough by spooning a nice bit along the middle, length wise. You want it pretty contained in the center, and about an inch from the ends (see above picture). Then take one of the sides and fold it over the filling, then fold the other side over. So you end up with the filling encased in a cigar shaped roll of dough. Cut the cigar in half, and swirl the end with the exposed filling to the closed end. It will result in a snail shell shape. Place in a greased and floured muffin tin. Repeat with all other pieces of dough.
- Cover the muffin tins with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise 90-120 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350F and bake rolls for 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool at least 30 minutes before removing from the tin and enjoy!