Pain Aux Raisins...Brioche style

Hope you made the ones yesterday!!

These Pain aux raisin are more like a brioche dough than yesterdays.

Not overly rich, almost cake like in texture.

I prefer the more flaky pastry texture myself but you try both and see.

Both are gorgeous but I would like to try these making a richer brioche recipe though.

Try making just brioche too and see how you like it.

I think brioche is sort of hybrid, not a bread but not exactly a pastry either.

I have also tasted these made with pastry, not yeasty bread pastry.

You do need to make the Brioche dough the night before in most recipes and this is no exception.

For the Dough:

4 cups of Bread flour.

2 tsp of salt.

1/4 cup of sugar.

3 tsp of dried yeast.

1/4 cup of cold water.

6 eggs.

200g butter at room temperature.

1 & 1/2 cups of pre soaked raisins.

Creme Patissiere;

150 ml of milk

Vanilla Bean with seeds scraped out.

2 Tbsp of castor sugar.

1 Tbsp of cornflour.

3 egg yolks.

Apricot Glaze:

3 big Tbsp of apricot jam (I like Roses Apricot Conserve).

4 Tbsp of warm water.

Combine all dry ingredients, including yeast together.

Mix water and eggs together and combine to make a dough.

Knead for about 5-6  minutes until smooth.

Add in butter, 30 gms at a time.

The dough will be very sticky initially but will come together.

Knead about 10 minutes in total.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover and leave for about an hour.

Remove dough from bowl and gently knock back a little.

Return to bowl, cover & refrigerate overnight.

Place raisins in a bowl and cover with hot water.

Leave for 5 minutes, drain and then leave raisins draining overnight in the fridge.

This will make them nice and plump.

Make Patissierie creme.

Place the milk in a saucepan and scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean.

I also put the seedless bean in too as it's still has lots of flavour to give us!!

Bring to slow boil.

Beat yolks in a dish and add in sugar and cornflour.

Remove bean.

Pour milk over this mixture and whisk well.

Return to sauce pan and simmer over a low heat, whisking all the time.

Cook for 2-3 minutes and then remove from heat.

Place patissierie creme in a bowl, cool and cover and place in fridge with dough and raisins for tomorrow):

Remove dough from the fridge the next day and roll out to about 60 x 30 rectangle.

Using a pallet knife if possible, or a spatula or non stick scraper, spread patissiere creme over dough.

Sprinkle raisins over the dough.

From the top edge, furthest away (long end) roll dough towards you, as tightly as possible.

If you look at my other version of Pain aux raisins, you can see the whole rolling up of the dough process.

Cut the dough into 3 cm slices and place on baking tray with paper.

Give each pain aux raisin about 5-6 cm between as they will expand a little.

Gently cover and leave for an hour to prove.

Pre heat the oven to 200C .

Place apricot jam in a small pan and warm with water until clear...place aside for pain aux raisins as soon as they come out of the oven.

Gently egg wash the pastries and place in the oven.

Bake for 15-18 minutes and rotate half way through.

Warm thinned apricot and as soon as you remove the pastries from the oven, brush heavily with apricot jam.

Leave to cool on racks...

All glossy and yummy!

ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!

Dean Brettschneider was my inspiration for this recipe from his latest bread book, " Bread".

Fabulicious!!