SOURDOUGH BUBBLE-TOP BRIOCHE

Steps:

• Mixing
• Mix together and cover the ingredients for the sweet stiff starter 6-12 hours before you plan to mix up your dough. The stiff starter will expand and get webby inside.
• Break the starter into pieces and mix it with all of the other dough ingredients except the butter. This can be done by hand/with a danish dough whisk or in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment.
• Move the dough to a clean surface and add the cubed butter in two stages. Fold, smear and squeeze the butter into the dough until there are no more palpable pieces. Repeat with the second half of the butter. If you are using a stand mixer for this step, make sure your butter is room temperature. This will probably take about 10-15 minutes whether by hand or mixer.
• After the butter is incorporated, knead (or mix in the stand mixer) the dough for an additional 5-10 minutes. See this video for the churning technique I used. Make sure to scrape up your dough and rotate it periodically.
• Bulk Fermentation
• When the dough is smooth and elastic, place it in a bowl, cover and let it rise until it is almost doubled. This can be as little as 6 hours in warm temps and 12 hours in cool temps, or even longer if you refrigerate the dough. The dough in these photographs was at room temperature for 1-2 hours, refrigerated for 7 hours and then room temperature again for 7 hours.
• Shaping
• Scrape your dough out onto a clean surface and shape it into a square for easy dividing.
• While the dough rests for 5-10 minutes, grease one standard cupcake pan thoroughly, including the horizontal surfaces.
• Divide the dough into 12 pieces of about 90g each.
• Divide one 90g piece into three pieces (no need to use a scale), and roll each piece into a ball, placing the three balls in one cupcake hollow.
• Repeat with the remaining eleven pieces. I don't cut all 36 pieces at once to prevent the dough from drying out.
• Final Proof
• Place a large baking pan over the cupcake tray and let the dough proof for 2-4 hours. You can also use toothpicks poked into about six of the brioches to keep a plastic cover from sticking to the dough. The dough in these photographs proofed a little over 3 hours, bulging up from cupcake holder by 1/2-1 inch.
• Put the cupcake pan inside a baking sheet to make it more transportable and apply the egg wash to the brioches.
• Baking
• Preheat your oven to 400F with a rack in the center of the oven.
• Place the baking sheet/cupcake pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
• Let the cupcake pan cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing the brioches from the pan and serving.
• Note: Reheat by popping a brioche in the microwave for 10 seconds or in the toaster oven until you can smell butter in the air. I found that breaking the brioche into its three parts facilitated toasting.