Pumpkin Brioche À Tête With Maple Butter
Hello, I’m back for the bake along and we’re doing bread week. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that bread isn’t really my forte and none of the tasks particularly appealed to me so I’ve gone rogue. I’s a bit of a stretch but I’m going to say that these little brioche à tête are the fancy French version of Paul’s cottage loaves, it translates to brioche with a head and they’re traditionally baked in fluted moulds, I already had these mini ones so that’s what I used but they work just as well in a muffin pan.
Since it’s nearly Halloween I thought I’d keep things festive so I’ve adapted my brioche recipe to include pumpkin puree, the best thing about this is not only that it’s delicious but these can be easily adapted to be vegan, simply replace the milk and butter with plant based alternatives, I recommend flora or naturli baking block.
These buns are delicious alone but I really recommend that you make the maple butter, it elevates the buns from a tasty treat to something that you just can’t stop eating.
Ingredients - Makes 12 plus extra plain buns
Spiced Pumpkin Brioche
330g strong white flour
5g fast action yeast
5g salt
50g dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
40g milk (or vegan based alternative)
250g pumpkin puree (I used tinned)
150g cold, cubed butter (or vegan butter block, it must be block and not spread)
Egg Wash
1 egg yolk
2 tsp milk
If you’re making these vegan, just use plant based milk in place of the egg wash.
Maple Cinnamon Butter
100g soft butter (or vegan alternative)
100g maple syrup (if you want to keep things a bit cheaper golden syrup also works)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of flakey sea salt
Start off by mixing the flour, sugar, spices, salt and yeast. Next add the pumpkin puree and milk and mix in a stand mixer with a dough hook for about 5 minutes, or by hand for about 7 minutes. When the dough is starting to become smooth slowly add the butter about a quarter at a time, don’t add more before each batch is fully incorporated or you’ll risk getting a split and sticky mess!
When the butter is fully incorporated you should have a lovely smooth dough. Turn it out onto a surface, form it into a ball and then put into a lightly greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise until doubled in size, my house is freezing so this always takes absolutely ages! Once it’s doubled in size you can use it straight away or put in the fridge overnight.
Now for the shaping, start by greasing your tins, then weigh out the main body of each brioche, for my size tins i weighed the main body to 40g and the “tête” to 5g. Shape the main body into a smooth ball and place in your tins. Then we’re going to make a little hole for the head to sit in, wet your finger and stick it into the middle of each ball as centrally as possible, this will keep the head in place and stop it falling off while baking! Shape the heads into little balls and place on top.
Leave to rise until doubled in size, this should take about 1 hour in a warm environment but can be longer. If, like me, you live in a freezing cold house, you can speed up this process by placing a bowl of freshly boiled water into the oven (turned off!) and putting the trays in with with water, this will create a nice warm, steamy environment, a diy proofer!
Once doubled in size, remove the trays and bowl of water from the oven (if using the diy proofer method) and pre-heat to 170°C. While the oven is pre-heating mix the egg yolk and milk together to make an egg wash and gently brush this all over the buns. Bake for 15 minutes.
While the buns are in the oven, make the cinnamon maple butter, this is the easiest thing in the world! Simply whip your soft butter until it’s pale and fluffy, add the rest of your ingredients, whip some more and that’s it!
