Sesame brioche rolls

Hmmmm . . . more sesame you say? This time let’s talk tahini brioche. While I don’t always have tahini on hand, once purchased and used for its intended project, it sits in the cupboard waiting. I think Steve and I bought a jar some weeks back to make a dressing or marinade for something. Fortunately the shelf life is good, but I don’t like to let it linger too long before figuring out ways to use it up.

Always up for trying a new brioche recipe, I thought I’d give this one a try. As was true of the sesame cumin crackers of which I wrote recently, the recipe comes from Sofra, the popular middle Eastern bakery/cafe in Cambridge MA. It was presented in the holiday 2018 issue of King Arthur Flour’s erstwhile magazine “SIFT”, a beautiful, glossy presentation of all things baking and pastry. Please note - all credit goes to Sofra and King Arthur - I’m simply here to share my experience as I went through the steps.

i love a buttery brioche and have tried and tweaked many a recipe. My current go to recipe involves the usual long mixing time for this enriched dough, followed by an overnight rest in the fridge before dividing, shaping and baking the intended rolls or buns or whatever. The primary difference with Sofra’s is the first step of making a sponge before mixing the final dough. A sponge belongs to the family of pre-ferments like poolish, biga, pâte fermentée and levain and is intended to give the dough a chance to develop more flavor as well as give it a longer shelf life.

After a quick review of pre-ferments in Rose Levy Beranbaum’s “The Bread Bible”, as well as a few recipes that utilize the sponge approach, I realized that the sponge in this brioche sits for a short 30 minutes. It seems that 1-4 hours at room temperature or even overnight refrigeration are more typical, buuuuuut . . . . . I opted to follow the recipe - you gotta try, right!

The image below shows my mise with the sponge not quite at the 30 minute stage (as you see above).

OK - let’s go through the steps. For the sponge blend together 60 ml / 1/4 cup tepid whole milk, 7 g / 2.25 teaspoons instant yeast, 1/2 teaspoon sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer; once the yeast has dissolved, whisk in 2 large eggs and stir in 130 g / 1 cup all purpose flour.

Sprinkle another 65 g / 1/2 cup all purpose flour over the top of the mixture.

Cover and set aside for 30 minutes until the top flour layer is cracked, a sign that the yeast has started its work.

Now add to the sponge: 227 g / 1.75 cups all purpose flour, 50 g / 1/4 cup sugar, 10 g / 2 teaspoons salt, 3 large eggs, 1 large yolk and 110 g /~1/3 cup well stirred tahini. Mix on low speed with the dough hook to bring everything together. Then increase to medium for 8-10 minutes until the dough starts forming around the hook.

Scrape down the sides and give it a high speed mix for a minute more.

On medium speed add half (100 g) of the cold, cubed butter; mix until incorporated; add the remaining 100 g butter and mix about 10-15 minutes more until silky smooth. Give it one more minute on medium high - you want the dough pulling away from the sides of the bowl.

Oooooooh - love that sheen!

Lightly butter a 3 or 4 quart bowl or container, place the dough in and press into a rectangle. Fold the edges in, turn the dough over and press again into a rectangle. Cover or tightly wrap and refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. Being such an enriched dough, it doesn’t tend to rise too aggressively.

Here it is the next morning. Rise and shine!!

In general when shaping brioche dough it’s best to keep it cold, so leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to go. I envisioned a smallish roll so I figured about 60 g / 2 ounces for each piece (Sofra’s yield is a dozen rolls, making each a generous 90-ish g each). My total dough came to 1100 g; divide that by 60 g which yields 18 rolls. Sounds good to me.

Divide the dough and shape each piece into snug balls.

Place rolls on a parchment lined sheet pan. NOTE: Sofra’s recipe directs use of a buttered 9 or 10” springform pan, tucking the rolls in and ending up with pull-apart rolls.

Cover with lightly buttered plastic wrap and let rise 2 to 2.5 hours. On a cold winter day and in my kitchen at 69ºF, I give them the longer rise. Since brioche is so enriched, it needs plenty of time and won’t appear to rise as robustly as lean yeasted doughs. Toward the end of the rise, heat your oven to 350ºF.

Brush the tops with a bit of egg white (or water or milk) and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake about 30-35 minutes until nicely browned (internal temp 190ºF). Cool and enjoy!

Of course Steve and I had to taste test a warm roll with a drizzle of honey (good!) and followed that the next day with sliced/lighted toasted versions served along side (or sandwiched with!) Sunday morning scrambled eggs. Yummy.

These will keep for several days well wrapped but I chose to freeze the majority of my batch (dinner rolls coming up?). I’m imagining a tasty chicken salad sandwich or sliced/cheesed up and broiled to go along with some of the great soups Steve has been making lately. Yes indeed.

Meanwhile , in spite of winter’s attempts to hold on, we’re getting little whiffs of spring - red wing blackbirds, the sandhill cranes who hung around all last summer have returned, pussy willows are starting to open and there’s a different feel in the air. You just know it.

Take care until next time!