Brioche

Aside from requiring a completely cold workspace, baking the perfect brioche also needs a

cool mind. It takes endless minutes of painstakingly careful measuring and weighing and shaping and smoothing out layers of glossy, transparent sheets of dough, which perfectly fold into each other and rise as a velvety pastry. Saying the name out loud is a pleasure in itself, as it gently ripples off your tongue, and this satisfaction is only rivalled by the actual taste of the delicate French bread.

The minute you touch the finished product, the golden brown tête seems to melt away in your fingers, which is a testimony to the endless amounts of butter that is beaten with a rolling pin and mixed bit by bit into the dough. A brioche can be described as an anomaly- it is made up of nearly 50% butter, but instead of being a dense, greasy brick, it's the softest and flakiest pastry you’ll ever have. It can be served plain, but my personal favourite is when miniature flakes of bitter chocolate and cinnamon is woven into the dough. From fruit to custard to stewed beef - there's nothing a brioche doesn't compliment.

On paper, it looks as if making a brioche is perfectly simple. It requires only a few core ingredients- butter (of course), flour, eggs, cream and brandy. Brandy is optional, but is a brioche really a brioche without a dash of the burning cherry flavour? In reality though, making a brioche requires a lot of concentration and a whole lot of attention, which means alternating between the burning embers of your oven and the frigid depths of your freezer countless times. It's definitely not built for amateur chefs, but every baker knows the glorifying feeling of seeing their complex ingredients bind together seamlessly to give a silky, crumbly loaf of bread.

It is my firm belief that a perfectly baked pastry can make anybody's day better, and the surefire way to put a smile on my face is definitely through a brioche.

Written by Anoushka Dasgupta

Edited by Shailaja Yasmine Das

Illustrations by Sreetama Mondal and Shailaja Yasmine Das