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Bread

Brioche, or Butter Buns

A brioche made with roll dough, butter, sugar, milk or cream, egg yolks, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Brioche, or Butter Buns

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the dough, sugar, and cream together in a pan and mix thoroughly.

  2. Beat in the yolks, two at a time, gradually adding most of the flour to form a smooth, yellow dough.

  3. Knead the dough thoroughly and set it aside to rise for about three hours.

  4. Knead the dough a second time, then an hour later knead it once more.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough as directed for French rolls and notch the edges with a knife.

  2. Let the rolls rise and bake them as you would regular rolls.

  3. Brush with butter when done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Roll dough
Provides a starter culture and structure that gives the brioche its initial rise and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and a soft crumb through its fat content.
Eggs
Yolks add richness, colour, and structure that helps the dough set when baked.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its elastic structure for rising.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Kneading and the long rise. Thorough kneading develops the gluten network that traps gas from fermentation. Under-kneading or rushing the rise leaves a dense crumb, since the rich butter and yolks weigh the dough down and need strong gluten to hold the bubbles.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More brioche recipes

Dough 14Cakes 4Cake 3Fritters 3Rolls 3Cheese 3 See all 27 →

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