Brioche Donuts
Brioche Donuts are one of my favorite breakfast foods. And, although, they do take a fair bit of time to make, I promise they are worth every effort. This brioche donut recipe in particular uses lots of eggs and butter, as well as milk and honey to make a deeply rich dough. After enough gluten is formed, the brioche dough gets a nice long cold proof in the refrigerator. This deepens the yeasted, bready flavor and lets the brioche dough hydrate for a more tender crumb. Then, of course, frying the brioche donuts make them even better. Because what doesn’t get better when it’s fried?!… maybe don’t answer that. lol.
Any way, if you are looking to recreate some of your childhood favorites, like cinnamon sugar donuts, chocolate ganache dipped donuts, or even jelly filled donuts this is the base donut to start with.
Get the Recipe: Brioche Donuts
Ingredients
- ¾ cup warm, whole milk
- ¼ cup honey of choice
- ½ tablespoon active dry yeast
- ½ tablespoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 4 large eggs, (approx. 220g)
- 3¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup unsalted Eurpoean-style butter, softened
Equipment
- 1 stand mixer with whisk and dough hook
- 1 thermometer (optional)
- silicone spatula
- 1 very large bowl
- cling wrap (cling film) or a plastic shower cap
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 donut cutter
- 1 dutch oven or stock pot
- 1 metal spider
- cooling rack (optional)
Instructions
- First, bring your butter and eggs to room temperature by placing them on the countertop for roughly 30 minutes before you start. To quicken things along and prep for later, slice the butter into roughly 1tbsp (14.2g) pats.
- Next, whisk the milk and honey together in a sauce pot on your stove top. Turn the heat to low and bring the mixture to about (125°F or 51°C), then pour the milk and honey into your mixing bowl.
- The temperature should come down once it hits a cold bowl. Use a thermometer to make sure the temperature has fallen between 110-115°F (43-46°C). Once you are in that window, add in the active dry yeast and let rest for 10-15 minutes so it can bloom.
- While that’s working, measure out the flour and salt and set aside. Also, very lightly butter a large bowl for proofing the dough later.
- When the yeast has bloomed, turn on the mixer with the whisk attachment and add in the eggs. Once incorporated, add in salt and then flour a little at a time until it’s about the viscosity of batter.
- Switch out the whisk attachment for a dough hook and continue mixing in the flour until it comes away from the sides of the bowl; It may take upwards of 15 minutes. At this point you can begin to add the butter pieces one-at-a-time. Once one mixes into the dough fully, you can add the next until all of the butter has been added.
- Continue to mix the dough until it gets shiny and you can gently touch it without it sticking to your fingers. It may need to mix for another 10 minutes to get to this stage. At any point, you can stop to do a windowpane test, to see if the dough is ready to to proof. Get your hands slightly wet and pull some of the dough up to see if it gets thin enough to see light through it without breaking. When you can do that, scrape the dough into the lightly buttered bowl and cover with cling wrap or a shower cap.
- Set it on the counter for 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size. Then, gently place it in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. 24 hours is best if you have the time.
- Once the brioche dough it chilled and/or cold-proofed adequately, scrape the dough onto a generously floured counter and roll it to about ½in (1.25cm) thick. Using a 3 1/2in (8.9cm) circular donut cutter, cut out all of your donuts. Try to do this quickly, as the dough will start to stick the longer it sits.
- Next, takeout the center of the donuts and place them AND each fully cut out donut on silicone lined baking sheets. Cover them with cling wrap and let them proof for 30-60 minutes or until they have doubled in size.
- While they proof, fill a deep dutch oven about 2in (5cm) high with canola oil or other neutral oil with a high smoke point and bring it up to 375°F (190°C). Keep a thermometer handy, because you want the oil to stay between that and 350°F (177°C) while frying. Prep a cooling rack or paper towels to set the cooked donuts to cool.
- To fry, take a proofed donut from the tray and place it into a metal spider strainer. Lower it into the oil and then let it cook until you can see the dough just begin to puff up. Use chopsticks to quickly flip the donut over in the oil and cook until that side is a nice golden brown, then flip the donut back over to cook the other side. Take the cooked donut out with the spider and set it aside to cool.
- Cook no more than 1-2 full donuts or 5-6 donut holes at a time, otherwise the oil temperature will drop too much. Donuts that have cooled for a few minutes can be eaten old fashioned style, dipped in a chocolate ganache, or coated in spiced sugar. (Of note: If you decide to coat the donuts in sugar, make sure they are are still warm when you do it or the sugar won't stick.) See FAQs for flavor/topping options! Enjoy!
Notes
- A note on equipment: If you don’t have a fancy donut cutter set, use a 3 1/2in (8.9cm) circular cookie cutter to make the outside cuts for the donuts. Then go back through with the base of a large piping tip (1.5in or 3.8cm in diameter) to cut out the centers. Cool right?! You can also change the size of the donuts and centers to whatever you’d like as long as you make a 1.5-2in (3.8-5cm) thick ring.
- Additionally, you can make a bunch of donut holes, but just cutting out small circles or simply leave them as big circles with no center cut to make a ring. These larger donuts are perfect for stuffing with jelly or whipped ganache.
- When frying the dough, you may need to make 1-2 before you get a feel for when to make the first flip.
- If you forget to take the eggs out of the fridge, you can add them to a large bowl of tepid water to warm up quickly.
- To soften butter quickly, fill a glass jar with tap-hot water for a minute, pour it out, and then place the empty glass over the butter. The air temperature in the glass will help soften the butter without melting it.
- If you warm the mixing bowl ahead of time by filling it with tap-hot water and then pouring it out before adding the milk and honey, you can simply heat the mixture to the top of the temperature window for blooming yeast. There’s less waiting and less swing in temperature to deal with this way.
Nutrition
Frquently Asked Questions
Chocolate Ganache:
2, 4oz ( 1c or 227g) semi-sweet chocolate bars, chopped (b/n 60-72%)
1 1/4 cup (300ml) heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons (30ml) golden syrup or honey (optional)
1 teaspoon (.8g) espresso powder
3 tablespoons (40g) unsalted butter, softened (optional)
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place them in a medium sized bowl. Heat the milk, espresso powder, and golden syrup until they just begin to simmer (around 180°F or 82°C). Pour the liquid over the chocolate and let it sit for 30-60 seconds. Then, whisk until all of the chocolate has melted. Add in the softened butter and blend with an immersion blender until the ganache becomes glossy and creamy. Dip the donuts immediately.
Sugared Toppings:
Rosemary, Lavender, & Hibiscus
2.5 teaspoons (1.5g) food grade dried lavender
2.5 teaspoons (3.5g) dried rosemary
5 teaspoons (6.25g) dried hibiscus flowers
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
Cinnamon & Sugar
1 tablespoon (5g) cinnamon
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
Blend the spices and mix with the sugar. Set aside until ready to coat the warm donuts.
Brioche is an enriched dough of French origins known for it’s it’s soft texture and rich, buttery flavor. It is a style of baked good that is a combination of bread and pastry, but doesn’t quite fit soley into either category. This is also known as a Viennoise. Viennoiserie have two subcategories laminated or non-laminated doughs. Brioche is non-laminated.
An enriched dough is a yeasted dough that also incorporates added fats, sweeteners, and proteins to create a richer, softer baked good. Think ingredients like: sugar, honey, butter, oil, eggs, milk, etc. Some examples of bakes that use enriched doughs are cinnamon rolls, criossants, and milk bread.
1. AP Flour: Some recipes use bread flour. But I like the softness of all purpose flour in this and most other brioche applications. If you’d like to use bread flour you will need to increase your liquid (milk) by 1/4-1/2 cup (60-120ml).
2. Milk: There are also a number of recipes that don’t use any liquid other than the eggs. To me, hydrating the flour with milk ensures a softer crumb. Fair warning, it does make this dough a bit harder to work with.
3. Long Proof: 24-hr ferment or cold proof. I know we all want delicious things sooner rather than later, but recipes without an extended proofing period are just not going to be as soft. Giving the brioche time to hydrate and relax
4. No Poolish or Tangzhong: Lastly, I’ve seen some recipes out there that use a poolish or tangzhong at the beginning to get the gluten really going from the jump. One day I’ll experiment with these techniques, but I’ve found this recipe’s way of adding ingredients works well for me, so I’m sticking too it.
When working with yeasted dough anything that is cold will inhibit fermentation and rise. It’s okay to use cold eggs and just softened butter. However, it will take longer to incorporate colder butter into the dough. And if the dough is cold, it will take longer to rise. Additionally, if your house is on the cold side, I highly recommend buying a seed starter warming mat to set your proofing bowl onto while the brioche dough is going through it’s first rise and second rise.
Of Note: Salt can also inhibit rise. That’s why I make sure it’s added after I’ve bloomed the yeast and know it’s live.
Cold-proofing the dough inhibits fermentation and allows the dough to develop more flavor and structure as it rises. Cold-proofing also makes it much easier to not over-proof your dough. The longer the cold-proof lasts, the more “bready” the donuts with taste. A full 24-hours isn’t necessary, but the dough is much better after a little sleep over in your fridge for the night.
If you forget the dough in the fridge, don’t worry. This dough can be cold-proofed for up to 2 days if you can’t get to it, but about 24 hours is recommended.
Chilling the dough also hardens the incorporated butter so that it’s much easier to handle at the beginning of flouring and rolling out the dough.
I recommend moving any uneaten brioche donuts to a baking sheet and freezing them individually as soon as possible. Brioche tends to go stale and dry out very quickly, think within a matter of hours. Once frozen, you can toss them in a baggy and into your freezer for roughly a month. Reheat on the lowest power your microwave has in 15 second increments.
If they do go stale before you can eat them all, consider making bread pudding, Frech toast, or a toasted sandwich with the leftovers.
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