BBD #10: Breakfast Bread! Sweet Dough by Richard Bertinet

Really really thank to Melissa for hosting this month BBD and I am really grateful to her for choosing such a delicious theme!

I found this recipe in the Gourmet site, with a really helpful video, too!

Here you can find the original recipe and here the video, featuring Richard Bertinet. I just add that it is really wonderful: texture, taste,.. it has been, since my discovering the recipe, my favourite breakfast bread, with just a hint of sweetness (not too much, however), perfect with my homemade plum jam.

With such a breakfast bread, it can't be a bad day, even on Mondays!!

I offer to you the recipe, converted in metric mesurement, but I strongly suggest to check the video: it really helps!

Ingredients:

240 ml whole milk
14 g fresh yeast

500 g bread flour
56 g unsalted butter, softened
45 g superfine granulated sugar
10 g teaspoons salt
2 large eggs

"Equipment:
a flexible plastic bowl scraper

Instructions:

heat milk until just warm. Rub yeast into flour in a large bowl, then rub in butter. Stir in sugar and salt. Fold in milk and eggs with bowl scraper, rotating bowl, until liquid is absorbed and a wet, sticky dough forms. (Dough will be wetter than most you’ve encountered).

Scrape dough out onto an unfloured surface.

(Dough will be a sticky mess. Don’t be tempted to add more flour. By working the dough through a process of repeatedly stretching and folding it over onto itself, trapping air, dough will become cohesive and supple.).
Slide your fingers underneath both sides of dough with your thumbs on top. Lift dough up (to about chest level) with your thumbs toward you, letting dough hang slightly. In a continuous motion, swing dough down, slapping bottom of dough onto surface, then stretch dough up and back over itself in an arc to trap in air. Repeat lifting, slapping, and stretching, scraping surface with flat side of bowl scraper as needed, until dough is supple, cohesive, and starts to bounce slightly off of surface without sticking, about 8 minutes.
Transfer dough to a lightly floured clean surface. Form into a ball by folding each edge, in turn, into center of dough and pressing down well with your thumb, rotating ball as you go. Turn ball over and transfer to a lightly floured bowl and cover with a kitchen towel (not terry cloth). Let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour."

Then pre-heat the oven to 200 °C (392°F), shape the dough as you prefer (I usually shape braid) and bake them until lighlty brown, about 20 minutes.

Enjoy the delicious smell in your kitchen, then open a jar of the best jam you own - but chocolate cream, for instance nutella, will be just as effective ;) - and indulge!