Christmassy Brioche for Stir Up Sunday

/ November 20, 2014

Although I had never heard of Stir Up Sunday before, the idea greatly appealed to me: traditionally the last Sunday before Advent was used in Britain to make the Christmas pudding. The family would gather and each member would get their turn stirring the pudding. With the advent of convenience food, however, this tradition is being lost. Although we don’t have Christmas pudding in Germany, around the end of November we start our own Christmas baking: stollen, gingerbread and other delights need a few weeks to develop their flavours, so in order to have them ready for the Advent period, or even Christmas, we need to get baking, too. It’s a wonderful time for the whole family to get involved – just have a look at the beautiful gingerbread we made last year! I’m usually lagging a little behind everybody else and will start my Christmas baking on the first Sunday of Advent, which happens to be in a week’s time. But to get you all as excited as we already are, I will present you with these delicious little brioches: a cross, really, between traditional brioches and panettone, they will make for a lovely Sunday breakfast treat. Their big draw is that you can prepare them the evening before, leaving you with only the baking to do in the morning.  Their Christmassy aroma will definitely get you in the mood for Stir Up Sunday – and who knows, you might even end up stirring your own pudding this year! Brioches for Christmas

Christmassy Brioches (makes 12 small brioches or one medium-sized loaf tin)

For the basic brioche:
  • 260 grams plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon dried yeast
  • 3 tablespoons lukewarm milk
  • 20 grams caster sugar
  • 3 medium-sized eggs
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 125 grams cold, unsalted butter, diced

Sift the flour into a bowl, scoop out a hole in the middle where you dissolve the yeast in the milk. Leave for 5-10 minutes, or until the yeast starts bubbling away. Once your yeast is active, mix in all the other ingredients except for the butter. Then add 1/3 of the butter and knead until it is incorporated, then proceed with the second and the third batch. Use a mixer if possible – to work in the butter is no mean feat and will take you 10 minutes! You dough is ready when the butter is fully incorporated into a smooth ball that comes off the sides of your bowl. Cover and leave to rest for around an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Adding the Panettone mix

Adding the Panettone mix

For the Panettone-style twist:
  • 1 handful raisins, ideally soaked in a little rum
  • 1 handful mixed peel, finely diced
  • the zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
  • 1 pinch ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon orange blossom water
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon milk

Carefully grease your individual brioche tins or a loaf tin. Once your dough has doubled in size, add the above ingredients and knead until they are evenly distributed. It shouldn’t take longer than a minute or so. If you are planning to make small brioches with little heads, divide the dough into three parts. Divide two of them into 6 pieces each to form 12 individual balls, which you place in the prepared tins. For the little ‘heads’ on the brioches, form 12 small balls out of the remaining dough, but make sure that their surface is smooth and there are no raisins sticking out of the surface as they invariably burn. Place the ‘heads’ on top of your brioches. Obviously, if you are using a loaf tin you simply plop it all into the tin. Remember the raisins, though! Cover the whole lot with clingfilm and leave to prove in the fridge overnight. The next morning, remove the brioches from the fridge and heat the oven to 180C. Once your oven has reached the required temperature, remove the cling film from the brioches. Mix the egg yolk with the milk and brush the brioches with the mix before placing them in the oven. Reduce the heat to 160C and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. A loaf needs to bake for around 40-45 minutes – use a toothpick to check it is fully baked.Brioche a tete briocheYou’ll be surprised how light and fluffy these little brioche are – you could easily double the amount of fruit to bring out the panettone flavour but I decided to keep it a little in the background. They are definitely moreish, so get out your brioche tins and get started.

Fiesta Friday Badge Button I was featured

I’ll bring these along to Angie’s at The Novice Gardener: every Friday a group of us gather there to share our food, cakes and ideas. This week it is co-hosted by  Tracy @Scratch It and Stephanie @The Cozy Cook, so many thanks to these lovely hostesses!
Fiesta Friday is a wonderful foodfest, so why don’t you come along and take a look? You might even feel like sharing some of your own food! Check out Angie’s blog and I might see you there 😉

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43 thoughts on “Christmassy Brioche for Stir Up Sunday”

  6. Pingback: Thanksgiving Corn Pudding (Steamed) | Fiesta Friday #43 | The Novice Gardener

  7. Thanks to FF I will be stirring up a pudding this Sunday, but these little brioches do look like a great way to get in the mood, or make any other time for that matter.

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    • So glad that someone is still stirring! I’d love to give Christmas pudding a try, but my family don’t do dark, heavy and fruity stuff … Happy Fiesta Friday! And Stir Up Sunday 🙂

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  8. It’s almost midnight but these photos makes me want breakfast now.The brioche look so fresh, inviting and delicious. Your photos are awesome too. Thanks for sharing!

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    • I made stollen this year for the first time … and the second, because the first attempt turned out to be indigestible (unless you don’t mind eating with hammer and chisel, that is) 🙂

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  10. You make these look so easy Ginger, and gorgeous too! I made brioche for the first and last time 34 years ago when I was a student in dental school! I thought they were labor intensive. Maybe I should give them another go. I do love eating brioche though:)

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  13. Delicious! They look fabulous! I didn’t know how to make stollen until we moved here, now I have to say that although we are surrounded by lots of the lovely stuff, it’s hard to beat the fresh stuff! 🙂

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    • I’d love to be able to buy it, though! My dad’s best friend was the local baker, and on Saturday mornings we’d always pop into the workshop, where we were allowed to ‘help’ for a few minutes. They had a Brezel machine! How cool is that! And before Christmas we’d pick up a giant gingerbread house, with a lightbulb inside it, to put under the tree … Now we have to make everything ourselves …
      I absolutely adored your picture of the kite – how I wish I could make stuff like that!

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  14. Another thing I’ve always been too terrified to even think of trying to make! And another thing that makes me want to cry about no longer being able to eat it 😉 I lived in Paris many moons ago, and whenever I flew back to the UK to visit friends I’d wear all the clothes I was taking and pack my bag full of brioche and red wine instead 😀 They were always so terribly pleased to see me… 😉

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