I love brioche. Its a buttery, rich, croissant-like bread. What’s not to love? There’s no doubt the classic version tastes great but if you add chocolate, well, things just get out of control good.
My dad makes a pretty good brioche loaf, even though he uses his bread machine to do most of the work. While I love the convenience of a bread machine, I feel by using it, one missed out on all the fun that is involved in bread making. And that’s why I never invested in one and probably won’t. That said, I do like the brioche my dad makes.
On the other hand, the first time I made a brioche loaf it was disastrous. I don’t know what I did wrong but the brioche did not rise. It was not feathery light, but dense. After that I put brioche making on hold for a while. Then I got the Bouchon Bakery
I have made a mention about the three issue old Bake From Scratch magazine before on the blog when I tried and shared their recipe for homemade rye bread. Their new issue is out and its all about French bakes.
The cover photo (which is absolutely gorgeous) is of this chocolate brioche, and one look at it and I knew I had to bake the brioche au chocolat. Equipped with the success from my previous brioche trials, and seeing how a chocolate brioche would be a perfect brunch/breakfast addition, I decided to bake the loaf before mom leaves for Canada.
I adapted the recipe slightly by subbing a little of the all purpose flour for whole wheat. I didn’t have too much whole wheat flour on hand to substitute though. Next time I will experiment with a higher ratio of whole wheat flour and will update this space with the results.
