Dear friends,
I’m on the way to work, so I am posting these without the badly-needed editorial comment they should have. I will try to carve out some time to explain what the hell happened to the brioche, but it may have to wait until after class tonight.
Here is the plain white sandwich loaf:
Here is the loaf with the eggs:
And here, gulp, is the brioche (it’s mighty mighty).
’mouse, I wish I had a good answer. I do have an answer, but I don’t like it much. The two brown loaves are brown because they’re full of sugar, about 7% of the total flour weight. I am not a fan of dosing good bread with sugar, but I have to concede that doing so lends that beautiful dark brown crust to white loaves. Most of the white bread I make is more golden, like the brioche. The exception are the breads I bake without any fats or eggs in the dough, like pain au levain, which I can bake longer and at higher temperatures. Those breads have deep, deep brown crusts, and because they’re baked at such high heat, when I pull them from the oven, the crusts crackle as the bread cools down. It’s such a beautiful sound.
’mouse, I wish I had a good answer. I do have an answer, but I don’t like it much. The two brown loaves are brown because they’re full of sugar, about 7% of the total flour weight. I am not a fan of dosing good bread with sugar, but I have to concede that doing so lends that beautiful dark brown crust to white loaves. Most of the white bread I make is more golden, like the brioche. The exception are the breads I bake without any fats or eggs in the dough, like pain au levain, which I can bake longer and at higher temperatures. Those breads have deep, deep brown crusts, and because they’re baked at such high heat, when I pull them from the oven, the crusts crackle as the bread cools down. It’s such a beautiful sound.