[WBD 2023] Spiral Brioche

I'm writing this post for the 2023 World Bread Day organized annually by Zorra from the blog Kochtopf (danke sehr!). 

My contribution for this year's event is something that I've been wanting to make for a long time: a spiral brioche with two colors. The recipe I chose, uses a combination of chocolate dough and plain white dough. This is really yummy plain, some jam, chocolate spread, a nice schmear of cream cheese or butter. When toasted, this bread is even more delicious!

Soft and Fluffy Spiral Brioche

Make sure you check out the round up of all participants at the end of October!

Some step by step photos:

My taste sample!

So soft and fluffy, and pretty!

Spiral Brioche

(adapted from this recipe on Facebook)

INGREDIENTS

Starter

• 6 gr instant yeast
• 50 gr granulated sugar
• 260 gr milk, lukewarm
• 8 gr vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 100 gr All Purpose Flour

Mix all starter ingredients together with a whisk and let the mixture sit on the counter between 10 min and 2 hours (I did the latter as I was busy with other things).

Dough

• All of the starter above
• 50 gr neutral oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 300 gr All Purpose Flour

Egg wash: 1 egg + a little milk or orange blossom water.

Optional: Swedish pearl sugar for decoration.

Knead the above ingredients into a soft and pliable dough. It will be sticky but try to avoid adding more flour. Cut the dough in half and add 14 gr of Dutch cocoa to one half of the dough. I ended needing to add a couple tsp of milk to the chocolate dough to keep it supple. Let both dough halves rise until doubled in volume (in separate containers). Wrap each dough half in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight. This will make this sticky dough easier to roll out the next day as well as develop some more flavor.

The next morning, roll each dough half into a large rectangle of equal size. Place the white dough underneath the chocolate dough. Roll out the stacked dough rectangles into a larger rectangle. I skipped the Nutella you see in the video. Roll it up cinnamon roll-style about halfway through the rectangle. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut 1/2" strips from the remaining dough and twist them. Continue rolling the dough over the twisted strips until the cover the entire outside of your "dough snake". Cut this in half and put it in your loaf pans. I used two 3.5"x7.5" pans. Let this rise until doubled in volume. Apply the egg wash, and if using, sprinkle some pearl sugar on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for about 30-40 min until a thermometer inserted in the center registers 195-205 F. Cool down completely on wire racks. We consumed one loaf and the other loaf went into the freezer for later. Enjoy!