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Brioche Paste

A yeast-based dough made with eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and salt, kneaded and left to rise.

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

Prepare the yeast

  1. Mix fresh yeast with water and let sit for an hour.

  2. Pour off the water and use the sediment.

  3. Take 2 teaspoons of the yeast, mix with a little hot water and ¼ of the flour to make a yeast paste.

  4. Cover and let rise for 15 minutes.

Make the dough

  1. Make a well in the remaining flour, add salt, sugar, and a little water to dissolve the salt.

  2. Add the butter in small pieces to the center of the flour well.

  3. Add the eggs and mix everything together.

  4. Knead the mixture thoroughly.

  5. Spread it out thinly and pour the yeast paste over it.

  6. Knead again twice.

Rise

  1. Place the dough in a sieve or earthen pan lined with a towel, sprinkle with flour, and cover with the towel.

  2. Let it rise in a cool place in summer or a warm place in winter.

  3. For best results, prepare the dough a day in advance.

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, moisture and structure to the dough as they bind with the flour.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and elasticity.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives brioche its rich flavor.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it a light texture.

The step that matters

Kneading the mixture thoroughly. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap gas and hold its shape. Adding butter and eggs before enough kneading can leave the dough greasy and slack, so it must be worked until smooth and elastic.

“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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