This recipe for blueberry brioche bread is delicious, fresh, and super impressive. Using fresh blueberries, you can make this brioche in about a half-hour of active time and 6-8 hrs of resting time. This blueberry brioche loaf is not too sweet, and would be great sliced and griddled like french toast!!
Don't you just love brioche??
This blueberry brioche bread recipe rules because it's
- Made with my foolproof brioche recipe
- Doesn't require a ton of hands-on time
- Makes use of fresh blueberries
- It isn't too sweet, and is perfect with coffee in the afternoon!
Top tricks to making really good brioche dough
- Use bread flour
- Weigh your ingredients
- Temperature test the water you make the yeast with, so you don't kill the yeast by accident (too hot) or don't activate it (too cold)
- Proof the dough at 70-78F
Brioche is a bit of a project. Below is a description of the specific weights and times for this brioche recipe.
Before you get started, place 2 cups of blueberries in a single layer on a plate and freeze them for at least 2 hours. Don't use pre frozen blueberries - they're too watery.
How to make blueberry brioche bread
Hydrate a single packet of yeast with ¼ cup of warm (110-130F) water and ½ teaspoon of sugar. Let the yeast mixture double in size. (I have tried recipes that use instant yeast, or recipes that mix yeast with milk, but I like to see that the yeast has activated and is doing its thing before I move on.)
Next, mix your yeast, bread flour, sugar, salt, water, lemon zest, and eggs in a
Then, add in the butter piece by piece so it incorporates and mixes it all together. (specific mixing times below).
Next, proof the dough first by letting the dough rise in the mixing bowl for 1-2 hours, until it's doubled in size.
Pour the dough out onto a floured working surface, and sprinkle the blueberries + 1 tablespoon of sugar on top. Then, roll it up, and place it into a loaf pan, and place covered in the fridge overnight (8 hours if you're working during the daytime).
Finally, for the final proof, pull the loaf out of the fridge and let it rest in a warm room (75F) for 1-2 hours until it's doubled in size.
Preheat your oven to 350F and brush egg wash on top of the loaf, and sprinkle demerara sugar on top. Bake for about 45 minutes, until browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan a little bit.
📖 Recipe
Blueberry Brioche Bread
Ingredients
- 1 packet of active dry yeast 7g hydrated with ¼ cup of 110-120F water and ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup 150g water
- 4 cups + 3 tablespoons 500g of bread flour
- heaping ¼ cup 60g caster sugar -- granulated is OK, but see here on the importance of using caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons 10g fine sea salt
- 4 eggs
- Zest of ½ lemon
- ½ cup 6 tablespoons or 125g softened unsalted butter, cubed
- 2 cups of blueberries
- 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar divided
- 1 egg + 1 T of water for an egg wash
- Materials needed
- KitchenAid mixer with a dough hook
Instructions
- Hydrate the yeast. Mix yeast packet with the warm water and sugar, and let the foam double in size.
- Make the brioche dough. Mix the flour, sugar, water, activated yeast, lemon zest, salt and eggs into the bowl of an electric mixer with a dough hook attachment and mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes, until it's all combined. Then turn up the speed to medium high and let it run for about 5 minutes, or until the dough starts coming away from the sides and forms a ball. Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for a minute. Slowly add the butter to the dough, about 25g at a time. Once it is all incorporated, mix on high speed for 5min until the dough is glossy, smooth and very elastic when pulled.
- Proof the dough. Cover the bowl with saran wrap and leave to proof in the bowl until it has doubled in size - about 1-2 hours.
- Shape the loaf and proof twice more. Pour the dough out onto a floured working surface, and sprinkle the blueberries + 1 tablespoon of sugar on top. Roll it up, and place it into a loaf pan, and place covered in the fridge overnight (8 hours if you're working during the daytime). For the final proof, pull the loaf out of the fridge and let it rest in a warm room (75F) for 1-2 hours until it's about doubled in size.
- Bake. Preheat your oven to 350F and brush egg wash on top of the loaf, and sprinkle demerara sugar on top. Bake for about 45 minutes, until browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan a little bit.