Let’s Make Amazing Honey Brioche!
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Every time I think about making brioche, I drag my feet a little because it seems so time consuming. The truth is even this honey brioche takes just as much time as a regular loaf of white bread, but it comes out so much better. I mean, seriously, sooooo much better.
The honey is earthy and sweet adding extra flavor to an already delicious loaf. Milk, butter, and eggs enrich the dough for a tender crumb. We’ll braid this into two separate loaves. That way you have one for eating and one for turning into an incredible French toast over the weekend.
Let’s bake some honey brioche!
How to Make Honey Brioche
This recipe is really easy for a loaf that comes out so beautiful. Just looking at it, you would probably assume it’s a huge pain. However, we’re going to simplify the process so you can stress bake great bread and have it on the table tonight.
1. Bloom Your Yeast
First things first, we have to bloom our yeast. The reason you want to bloom your yeast before starting your bread is to make sure it’s alive and ready to leaven your bread. If it doesn’t bloom, you’ll have a flat loaf. It’s best to find out now before you start working.
We’re going to warm our milk to 110ºF. For me, this involved microwaving it for 45 seconds and stirring it to cool it back down to the right temperature. Milk that is too hot will scald your yeasties and result in no blooming. To the milk, I add a tablespoon of sugar as a snack for my yeast when they wake up. Then, you mix in that yeast!
After about 5 minutes, it should look like the foamy head of a beer (except on top of a cup of milk). Your yeast is ready to work, now.
2. Combine Yeasted Milk with Eggs, Melted Butter, and Honey
While your yeast is blooming, you can melt your butter and whisk it together with the honey. This serves two purposes. One, it cools the butter slightly. And two, it thins the honey so it will mix into the dough easier.
Once your yeast is bloomed, you can whisk in the liquid honey butter and your eggs. Make sure the eggs are whisked in thoroughly and no whites are left floating at the top.
3. Mix the Liquid into the Flour and Knead
I use a stand mixer because the dough can be very sticky, and I don’t want to add too much flour on accident. So, in the bowl of your mixer, whisk together the flour and salt. Then, attach your bread hook, and start mixing on the “Stir” function; this is the lowest setting. You want to slowly stream in the liquid so it doesn’t splash out.
Once the liquid is incorporated, turn the speed up to 4 and let it go for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it. If it’s sticking to the sides of the bowl, you need to add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time. In the end, the sides of the bowl will have some sticky looking residue, but the bulk of the dough should pull away from the sides.
4. Proofing Honey Brioche the First Time
While you’re mixing your dough, begin preheating the oven to the lowest heat it will go. Try to keep an eye on your oven thermometer and turn it off at 100ºF. I preheated to 170ºF, turned it off, and left the door open until the temperature came down enough. This is how I fake a proofing drawer.
On that note, I’m pretty positive that the actual drawer under my oven is supposed to be a proofing drawer (it’s definitely not a broiler). However, mine houses all my pans. I wasn’t about to move them, so here we are getting inventive.
Once your dough is mixed, oil your hands and a clean bowl. Transfer the dough to the new bowl, cover with a tea towel, and place in your 100ºF oven to proof for 2 hours or until it’s doubled in size. You might turn on the oven light to keep an eye on it.
5. Braiding and Then the Second Proof
Your dough is now big and puffy and ready to divide and braid. I like a 4-strand braid, but I also want you to do what you feel comfortable with. If 3-stranded braids are more your speed, go with that!
First, divide your dough in half (this recipe is for 2 loaves after all). Then, divide each half into 4 equal sections. Roll those sections into equal-length strands. Braid them to the best of your ability. I set all four strands parallel to each other and braid the leftmost strand over and under the others. This leads to my braid going diagonal on the board, but I can straighten it out easily at the end.
Once you’ve braided both loaves to your liking, transfer them to a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. You may want to place them on separate pans because they will get pretty large. I use a long grill spatula to do the transfer. It does the job and I have it on hand.
Cover the loaves once again with a tea towel (or two) and proof on the counter at room temperature for 1 hour. The only caveat is that room temperature must be relatively warm. My kitchen was 75ºF when I made these. That’s the coolest we keep the house when we have the air conditioner running on hot days.
6. Finally Baking Your Honey Brioche
Now that your loaves are big and bold again, get that oven preheated to 375ºF. I’d also get the foil roll out just in case. I find that my loaves are the right shade of golden brown about halfway through baking, so I like to tent them to prevent over-browning midway through the bake.
Make an egg yolk wash using the yolk of an egg and a little bit of water. Brush this thoroughly over your bread, and it’s ready to go in the oven. You can, of course, sprinkle the top with poppy seeds or sesame seeds if you want. That’s not my thing, though. I like my honey brioche naked.
Bake your loaves for 20ish minutes. After 10 minutes, check the browning and see how you like it. Depending on your oven, you may need to rotate your pans so the top loaf goes on the bottom and vise versa. I would also make sure to give each pan a 180º turn so the front goes to the back for equal baking. It’s at this point that you can tent in foil if you’re happy with the color.
Once the loaves are done baking, they should register 190ºF in the center if you insert a meat thermometer. Transfer your brioche to a cooling rack and leave them alone until they’re at room temperature. I know this is difficult because they look and smell incredible. But if you cut it open now, they just won’t be as good.
What to Do with Leftover Brioche
If you’re thinking, “Man, this sounds good, but I have no use for two loaves of bread,” stick with me. There is so much you can do with this bread. Don’t give up on it yet. First things first, you’ll want to enjoy slices with butter at dinner. You might even want slices with Nutella or jam for dessert. Brioche is great for fancy grilled cheese, too.
Now, if you’re worried about a loaf going stale, that’s actually a good thing. You can use the stale loaf for the best French toast ever! I love this recipe from Keeping it Simple because it uses honey for sweetness so you get a double hit of that wonderful flavor in your breakfast.
Serve your French toast with fresh berries and hot coffee… oh man, doesn’t that sound good?
I also really like to use this in my Irish Soda Bread Pudding in place of the soda bread. Sometimes, I’ll even swap the raisins for chocolate chips to get real funky. No matter what, though, you have to make that vanilla custard sauce.
How Brioche is Different from White Bread
Brioche uses a lot of eggs, whole milk, and butter plus the honey we added here for sweetness. This means that brioche has more flavor, is richer and sweeter, and is much more tender than a basic white bread loaf.
Let’s compare it to my simple white bread recipe. For that, you’ll use water instead of milk, and olive oil instead of butter. There is just enough sugar to feed the yeast. This leaves the loaf lighter, fluffier, and less sweet and buttery.
Is Challah a Kosher Brioche?
Where white bread is a whole different animal, brioche and challah are like sisters. Challah is the kosher way to make brioche. Instead of milk and butter, you would use water and oil. This makes it “pareve” or neutral. The dairy in brioche prevents it from being eaten with meat products.
So, in order for the bread to have a place in a good meal, the dairy ingredients were replaced with other neutral ingredients. The resulting bread is still rich thanks to the luscious fat in the oil and the eggs. For a really awesome recipe, I direct you to Frosting and Fettucini’s Best Challah.
Fun fact: Challah gets its name from the word for “dough offering.” When making challah, it’s custom to set aside a portion of the dough as an offering to God for blessing you with food. You can learn more about how to separate challah from The Jewish Woman.
Tools You’ll Need for Honey Brioche
To get you going on your way to a rich honey brioche, here are the tools I use:
- Kitchenaid Stand Mixer
- Norpro Sheet Pans
- Amazon Basics Silicone Baking Mats
- Norpro Bench Scraper
- OXO Pastry Brush
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
Honey Brioche
Equipment
- Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
Ingredients
- ¾ cup whole milk warmed to 110ºF
- 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- ¼ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup raw honey
- 5 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
Instructions
- Dissolve 1 Tbsp of sugar into warm milk. Stir in the yeast and let it bloom for 5 minutes.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, and honey. Once the yeast is bloomed, mix that in as well.
- Add in the first 4 cups of a flour and the salt. Turn the mixer on low speed until well combined. Add the final cup of flour a little bit at a time until the dough isn't sticking to the sides of the bowl as much. Scrape the sides of the bowl down as needed. Set the mixer to medium-low speed and let it knead for 10 minutes.
- Transfer the dough to a large, oiled bowl and cover with a tea towel. Proof in a warm spot for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size. I preheated my oven to 170ºF, let it cool down to 100ºF, and set the dough in there.
- Turn your dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Divide it into 8 equal pieces. Roll or pull each piece into an 12-inch log.
- Braid 4 strands on a lined baking sheet, and tuck the pinched ends under. Repeat with hthe other 4 strands to form 2 loaves. Cover and proof for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Brush your loaf with an egg wash made from one egg yolk beaten with 1 Tablespoon of water. Bake for 22 to 27 minutes, or until the interior registers 190ºF. After about 15 minutes, if the top looks dark enough, you might cover in aluminum foil to prevent it browning too much.
- Allow the bread to cool completely before cutting into it.
