Brioche loaves

Gail's Artisan Bakery Cookbook, p. 63

Walking into the bakery early in the morning when brioche is baking is one of the greatest moments in a baker’s day. It means wafting on a cloud of cooked, sweet butter. It’s like stepping into cake. The scent sticks to your clothes and stays with you all day. If bread is good and bread and butter is better, then brioche has to be best of all. We love brioche in its own right, especially toasted with plenty of jam, but it’s also a steppingstone towards so many more dishes, both sweet and savoury. Toasted slices of brioche are perfect with pâtés, or slip slices under poached eggs smothered with Hollandaise for an indulgent Eggs Benedict. If the loaf is a few days old – a little dried up and lonely – that’s your cue to turn it into bread and butter pudding, or French toast. Plenty more recipes in this book call for brioche dough so, if making this recipe, you might choose to use half to make a brioche loaf, and put half to another use.