Brioche Recipe: Veneziana

This brioche recipe turned out better than I had expected!  Today I brought them over to my sister-in-law and nieces and they loved them. For the past few months, I have been searching for some brioche veneziane recipes and had kept a note of a few to try.

Last Saturday as I ventured out of the house for the first time in two weeks to check out the snow in Rome, I had hoped to get a brioche at the bar.  Unfortunately, even the bar was closed and that meant no brioche to curb my craving.

I guess this was the time to pull out those recipes that I have saved and make my own brioche. At the end, I decided to use this recipe because the brioche veneziane looked delicious!

Brioche Recipe: Veneziana

Adapted from https://lamuccasbronza.blogspot.com/2008/02/venezianine-ine.html

Ingredients – Makes 9 brioche

Dough:
250 grams Flour 00 (Alternatively all-purpose flour or cake flour)
1/2 packet of active dry yeast (In Italy, it is lievito di birra liofilizzato and a packet is 7g)
50 grams of sugar
1/2 packet of vanilla (or 1-2 drops of vanilla essence)
1/2 lemon grated rind
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon of salt
36 grams butter
100-125 ml warm milk (don’t have to use all)

1. Sift flour and add active dry yeast in a bowl.

2. Form a well and add sugar, vanilla, lemon rind, egg, salt and melted butter. Mix well.  Note: My well wasn’t really a well haha!

3. Add warm milk a bit at a time and use your hands to knead until you get homogenous and smooth dough. You don’t have to use all the milk. For this step, I used a hand mixer with a dough hook.

4. Cover the dough and let it rise for 90-120 minutes until double in size.

5. Punch the dough down and divide the dough into 9 pieces about 60-65 grams per piece.

6. Form each piece into a ball and place on a baking sheet. Let them rise for another 30 minutes.

7. While waiting for the dough to rise the 2nd time, prepare the pastry cream.

Egg Wash

1 egg yolk with 1-2 teaspoons of milk

Topping: Pastry cream
1 egg yolk
25 grams sugar
10 grams of flour
80 ml of milk
vanilla essence and lemon rind
Powdered sugar to dust

1. In a pot, mix egg yolk and sugar until creamy.

2. Add flour and mix well to make sure the mixture is not lumpy.

3. Slowly add the milk and mix until smooth and creamy.

4. Add lemon rind and vanilla essence.

5. Cook over low heat until becomes thick. Keep stirring and keep an eye on it constantly.

6. Let it cool.

Brioche Recipe: Assembling Veneziana

1. Brush the dough balls with the egg wash.

2. When cooled,  place the pastry cream in a piping bag.  If you don’t have one like me, place it in a small plastic or ziplock bag and cut a small corner.

3. Pipe pastry cream on the dough making rings.  Start in the middle.

4. Bake at 180C  for 13-15 minutes.

5. When it has cooled slightly(5-10 minutes), dust with powdered sugar.

Final Notes

I was very happy with the first attempt at making this recipe as the inside was soft and fluffy!

Also, these brioche freeze very well.  Freeze individually and just microwave them.  They come out nice and soft.  If you wish, you can also fill these brioche with pastry cream.  Depending on how pastry cream you like, double or triple the pastry cream recipe above.

I  chose not to as I wanted them plain this time around. Next time however, I may fill them.  I just love this brioche recipe and plan on making some again this weekend when it’s expected to snow again in Rome!