Tuesdays with Dorie: Brioche Sandwich Buns (and bonus Chocolate Babka)

In our house, we are always at a loss when it comes to "what's for dinner"?  We can get a rut. For this week, I planned the sandwich buns to line up with my husband's plan to try to make smashburgers at home. Luckily, his plan was to make these outside and not make a splattery mess in the kitchen.

I've made challah before but never brioche.  I read others' posts about their experience with this recipe.  I must have been using small bits of butter because incorporating it into the dough took almost 20 minutes rather than 10 that Dorie describes. After the dough was finished and had proofed, I got caught up on late night tv waiting for each of the "flips".  I must have skimmed over that part when I read the recipe.  :-)

The dough was much more dense than the other bread dough recipes I've made but it had no trouble rising after I'd shaped the buns.  I thought I'd shaped them into smooth rolls but they had quite a bit of character from the baking process.  I used half of the dough to make 6 buns.  Dorie's instructions said to bake for 23-28 minutes.  I checked the temperature of mine at the 20 minute mark and they were 200 degrees exactly.  I wondered if the deep golden brown color meant that I'd overbaked them but they were perfectly soft and tasty.  We sized the burgers to the buns and had a delicious dinner.  Our teenaged son (the smashburger connoisseur) approved.

As a bonus, I decided to use the other half of the dough recipe to make the chocolate babka.  I read through others' posts from December 2022 to get a few tips.  I was looking for a prominent chocolate flavor so I planned to follow Dorie's advice to add chopped chocolate with the filling ... and then I promptly forgot until the dough was rolled and filled.  I increased the cocoa to 2 tablespoons, though.  I chilled the filled roll for almost an hour then sliced and braided it.  What a dramatic pattern!  I couldn't wait to see what it looked like as it proofed. 

 

In the meantime, I made the streusel topping.  I double-checked my measurements because it seemed as if I had too much dry ingredients to incorporate into the butter.  I added the streusel to the proofed loaf, following Dorie's suggestion to press it into clumps.  Once baked, I really liked the texture that her ratio provided--less hard and crunchy, super-sugary pieces and instead a more delicate crunch and pleasantly sweet topping. 

The baked loaf was as dramatic as I'd hoped.  It is a very impressive looking bread with an amazing texture.  Next time I'll add the chopped chocolate or maybe add some hazelnut spread to amp up the chocolate flavor.  I took the babka to a gathering and it was a crowd-pleaser!

Check out these classic recipes in Dorie's book, Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple!