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brioche

 
Dictionary: bri·oche   (brē-ôsh', -ōsh') pronunciation
 
brioche
(Click to enlarge)
brioche
( School Division, Houghton Mifflin Company)
n.

A soft, light-textured bread made from eggs, butter, flour, and yeast and formed into a roll or a bun.

[French, from Old French, from broyer, brier, to knead, of Germanic origin.]


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French; sweet bread or yeast cake, sometimes containing currants and candied fruit, or filled with chocolate (pain au chocolat).

 
Food Lover's Companion: brioche; brioche molds
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[BREE-ohsh; bree-ahsh] This French creation is a light yeast bread rich with butter and eggs. The classic shape, called brioche à tête, has a fluted base and a jaunty topknot. It also comes in the form of small buns or a large round loaf. Special fluted brioche molds, available in metal, glass or ceramic, are necessary for the brioche à tête. Brioche dough is also used to enclose foods such as sausage or cheese.

 
Wikipedia: Brioche
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Brioche
Brioche des Rois (served around Epiphany, esp. in Provence)
Still life with Brioche, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, 1763

Brioche is a highly enriched French bread, whose high egg and butter content give it what is seen as a rich and tender crumb. It has a dark, golden, and flaky crust from an egg wash applied before and after proofing.

Contents

Forms of brioche

Brioche à tête is perhaps the most classically recognized form. Brioche à tête rolls are panned in fluted tins with a small spherical piece of dough placed on top. Brioche Nanterre is a loaf of brioche panned in a standard loaf pan. Instead of shaping one piece of dough and baking it, two rows of small pieces of dough are placed in the pan. Loaves are then proofed in the pan, fusing the pieces together. During the baking process the balls of dough rise further and form an attractive pattern.

Typical core ingredients for brioche dough are:

  • flour
  • eggs
  • butter
  • sugar (optional, when used only in small quantity as food for yeast; not to sweeten)
  • milk
  • yeast
  • salt

History

The word brioche first appeared in print in 1404, and this bread is believed to have sprung from a traditional Norman recipe. It is argued that brioche is probably of a Roman origin, since a very similar sort of sweet holiday bread is made in Romania ("sărălie"). The cooking method and tradition of using it during big holidays resembles the culture surrounding the brioche so much that it is difficult to doubt same origin of both foods.

Despite its origin in France the brioche is considered a viennoiserie. It is made in the same basic way as bread, but has the richer aspect of a pastry because of the extra addition of eggs, butter, milk, and occassionally a bit of sugar. Brioche, along with pain au lait and pain aux raisins — which are commonly eaten at breakfast or as a snack — form a leavened subgroup of viennoiserie. Brioche is often cooked with fruit or chocolate chips and served as a pastry or as the basis of a dessert with many local variations in added ingredients, fillings or toppings. Less rich versions of brioche are sometimes used in savoury meat dishes; most commonly stuffed with foie gras.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his autobiography Confessions (published posthumously in 1782, but completed in 1769), relates that "a great princess" is said to have advised, with regard to peasants who had no bread, "Qu’ils mangent de la brioche", commonly inaccurately translated as "Let them eat cake". This saying is commonly mis-attributed to Queen Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI.

Etymology

The word comes from Old Norman French verb « brier » (an old form of « broyer ») then used in the sense of « to, knead dough with a wooden roller»; the participle is also found in « pain brié », a norman specialty. The suffix -oche is added to the verb « brier » to désignate the product. The root, (bhreg), is of Germanic origin .[1]

References


 
Translations: Brioche
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - brioche

Nederlands (Dutch)
soort gebak (Frans)

Français (French)
n. - brioche

Deutsch (German)
n. - Brioche (Gebäck)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - μπριός (είδος αρτοσκευάσματος)

Italiano (Italian)
brioche

Português (Portuguese)
n. - brioche (m)

Русский (Russian)
булочка

Español (Spanish)
n. - brioche (pan de huevo y mantequilla)

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - brioche (bröd)

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
奶油蛋卷

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 奶油蛋卷

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 브리오슈(버터,달걀,효모로 만든 카스텔라 비슷한 과자)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ブリオッシュ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) خبز مدور‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮עוגיה‬


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Brioche" Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more