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Brioche Paste

A yeast-leavened dough made with eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brioche Paste

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brioche Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the leaven

  1. Combine 1 lb. of flour with 2 teaspoons of yeast that has been activated with water and allowed to settle in a bowl.

  2. Pour a little hot water over the yeast mixture and mix to form a leaven.

  3. Flour a pan. Place the leaven in the pan to rise, making a slit on top.

Make the dough

  1. Once risen, make a hole in the remaining flour, add ¼ teaspoon of salt, ¼ cup of powdered sugar, and a little water to dissolve.

  2. Add the butter in small pieces and the eggs, then mix and knead thoroughly.

  3. Spread the dough out, incorporate the leaven, and knead until well combined.

Rise

  1. Flour a towel, wrap the dough in it, and place it in a pan to rise in a warm spot if it's cold, or a cool spot if it's hot.

  2. Prepare the dough a day in advance for best results.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Add richness, structure and moisture to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, soft crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the finished bread.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and eggs. Cold, firm butter added in small pieces blends in gradually, while kneading develops gluten. Adding too much fat at once can slow gluten development and leave the dough greasy, so it should be incorporated slowly and thoroughly.

“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.

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