Brioche Dough Recipe

Brioche Dough Recipe | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Here is a classic fall recipe with a twist. It is a lovely and quick dessert, especially if you have a bucket of brioche on hand. For those of you who do not already own The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, here is the recipe and it can be used for all of these wonderful treats: caramel sticky buns, grilled fruit tart, fresh fruit muffins, Brioche à tête, apricot pastries and fabulous doughnuts! Actually the possibilities are endless, just use your imagination and let us know what treats you’ve come up with.

Brioche Dough (makes about 4 loaves)

1 1/2 cups (340g) lukewarm water

1 tablespoon Active Dry, or Quick-Rise yeast (1 packet)

1 tablespoon kosher salt

8 large eggs, lightly beaten, AT ROOM TEMPERATURE (this is important for faster rising)

1/2 cup (170g) honey

1 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, melted

7 1/2 cups (1065g) unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix the yeast, salt, eggs honey and melted butter with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.

Mix in the flour, using a spoon until all of the flour is incorporated.

Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours. Note: Sometimes with brioche, with so much cold egg, if you don’t use warm enough water, the initial rise can be very slow. Professionals would fix this by letting the eggs come to room temperature, which solves the problem. You can do that, or just make sure that your final mixture of egg/butter/water is nice and warm (but not hot, or you can kill the yeast).

The dough can be used as soon as it is chilled. This dough is way too sticky to use after the initial rise, but once it is chilled it is very easy to handle. It can be used to create the Tatin or any of these brioche recipes: caramel sticky buns, grilled fruit tart, Fresh Fruit Muffins, Brioche à tête, apricot pastries and fabulous doughnuts! The dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. After that you can freeze the dough.

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543 thoughts to “Brioche Dough Recipe”

  1. I have a question about your change in the brioche dough recipe in the number of eggs used. The original recipe in your first and second books using 8 eggs versus your Holiday book using 6. My apologies if I have missed your explanations but I have not found a reference in the text about why the change. Thank you in advance.

    1. Some of the recipes in the Holiday book that use that dough call for complicated shaping techniques, and the eggier, wetter dough from the earlier books didn’t hold their shape quite as well.

  2. How can I convert this recipe to Gluten Free?
    Can I use Gluten Free flour as the only exchange?
    Please let me know what you think I should use, thank you.

    PS: I just love all of your recipes, and my kids love it as well, but my husband and son were recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease and I’m just learning how to convert regular recipes that my family loves to Gluten Free for 2 people instead of 5, its been very challenging to cook 2 separate meals almost every day of the week. thank you in advance.

    1. We have a whole universe of gluten-free recipes in our books; mostly in Gluten Free Bread In Five Minutes a Day (https://amzn.to/1msOBmY), which has many enriched recipes including brioche, based on GF flours, including our own mixture.

    1. You must mean bread flour, and the answer is that you can, but it’s really not traditional to use it in brioche, which is meant to be very soft and tender. You would need to increase the water though, maybe a quarter cup, or half that for starters, depending on which brand of bread flour.

  3. Third try. Desperate. Please help. My brioche from Healthy Bread was way, way too wet, even after two days in the fridge. More batter than dough. It literally splashed in the mixing bowl. Recipe says oil instead of butter is okay, but is it possible that that’s the problem — oil is a liquid. Managed to bake it by getting it into pans. But please help solve the problem

  4. i’ve asked a question three times and stupidly thought the answer would come in my e-mail, or at least a notification for it. Now I see that I need to return to the page where I posted the question. But I have no idea how to do that. I just clicked on the question choice, typed in my question and sent it. You probably answered me the first time, but….

    (It was about too loose dough for brioche)

  5. Hi! Thanks for sharing these wonderful recipes! Just curious how many pounds of dough does the brioche recipe produce? (Just trying time figure out how many items I can make from this recipe). Also if making a simple brioche loaf, how much room do you leave in the loaf pan to account for rising during baking?

    1. It’s about 5 pounds of dough. We like a generous fill, so 3/4 of the way up the pan. Smaller loaves are a little easier for beginners to handle in terms of being confident that it’s baked all the way through.

  6. Hi! The recipe calls for large eggs, right now I can only find jumbo eggs, do I need to decrease the number of eggs used? And by how many?

    1. That’s a hard one. I’d say by one egg, but that’s just a guess. We’ve never tested with Jumbo.

      1. Depends which of our dough recipes you’re using, and from which book. If we didn’t give a yield in ounces/pounds/grams, you just total up all the ingredients’ weights, halve that (for a half-recipe), and after you decide what size rolls to make (3 ounce, 4 ounce, 5…), just divide that out.

  7. Thanks for this recipe! We’ve been adding fillings to our individual brioche in those cute fluted tins including almond paste, kumquat jam, and we’re about to try goat cheese. So good!

    1. Check out our FAQs page by clicking above, and choose “Weighing ingredients…” We give weight equivalents for “scoop-and-sweep” cup-measures. Then just do the calculation. Much more in the book where this recipe comes from (https://amzn.to/3bJWLGx)

  8. Hello! I would like to make this recipe with white whole wheat flour. How much should I use instead? How much more water?
    Thanks!

  9. Hello! I’ve used your books and method for several years now, but just made my fist attempt at the Brioche dough. I thought it looked ok (I saw some tiny lumps but the book said that was normal) and put it in the fridge overnight. I just pulled it out and there are tiny hard lumps all through out it. I’m wondering if maybe I put the ingredients together in the wrong order (is there a proper order?) I mixed the yeast, salt, eggs, honey and butter…then added the water, then flour.
    I’m letting it rest right now and will continue to try and make the Truck Stop cinnamon rolls 🙂

    1. Hi SJ,

      That can happen and they should just bake out and you probably won’t even notice a difference. It doesn’t really matter what order the ingredients are added, it just has to be very well mixed. If you have a stand mixer, you can make the dough with the paddle attachment and it will come out perfectly smooth.

      Thanks, Zoë

  10. I made a half batch of the brioche dough recipe, unfortunately, I added the 1/2 cup of honey instead of 1/4 cup I was supposed to. It didn’t rise as much as it usually does, but went ahead and put it in the refrigerator after 2 hours. A couple of hours later I went and folded it a couple of times and popped it back into the fridge. Will the recipe still work or should I just start over? I really hate to waste ingredients, but would understand if it wouldn’t behave right. Might be good for a batch of honey buns if you think it might still rise appropriately. Any advise would be appreciated.

      1. Thanks, it doesn’t look like it proofed very much, but I hate throwing out good ingredients. I appreciate the help.

      2. One more recommendation: stop folding it or manipulating it after the initial rise. In our method you don’t want to knock the gas out of risen dough.

      3. Here it is: 2024, over 10 years since I found your books. I make the batch brioche and the artisan so I have the dough on hand for when my son pops in for a visit. To grab some dough for a quick loaf is super convenient. And by the time he gets here the bread is warm, fresh from the oven.

  11. Hi. You say that dough can be used as soon as it is chilled. Does this mean we need to refrigerate it after the two hours sitting at room temp? If yes, when we take it out of the fridge, do we need to let it seat to get it back to room temperature?

  12. Honey in the amounts used in your recipes is a bit cost prohibitive for me. Is there a way to substitute sugar? Maybe a ratio of sugar to water, to equal the volume or weight of the honey? Thank you!

  13. Can one use margarine and non-dairy milk? Also, I wanted a nice EASY dough to make mini cinnamon buns. Is this what I am looking for? Looks relatively easy and relatively quick.
    Thanks for your wo9nderful website and creations

    1. Yes, this is the dough you want (also, type “cinnamon” into the Search Bar on the home page for recipes; more in our books). About the margarine and non-dairy milk– yes, it will work, but it won’t taste the same, of course. None of that butter flavor will be there, which is the essence of the brioche.

    1. Check your measurements, make sure you’re not under using too little flour. You can work a little flour into it, and then let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours so that it re-ferments.

    1. It’s not here on the website, which contains just a sampling of the many recipes from my 7 bread cookbooks. My publisher would disown me if I put all the material from the books here on the site! The GF brioche recipe is in the book: Gluten-Free Bread in Five Minutes a Day (click on the book images above).

  14. For the brioche, it says to leave at room temperature for 2 hours, then you said “the dough can be used as soon as it is chilled…”.
    So, do I put it in the fridge after 2 hrs or what? From the room temp step to the chilled step, does it miraculously get cold? How long to place in the fridge? When?

    1. You can use it right after the initial rise, at room temperature. But it’s easier to handle when you chill it in the fridge for several hours, or up to five days.

  15. Which brioche dough is best to make hamburger buns? I prefer soft buns for chicken salad, pulled pork and grilled ham sandwiches.

  16. I made up a batch of brioche dough from the original book, and made fantastic cinnamon rolls with it. They were perfect–I poured a bit of cream over them right before baking and got that ooey gooey texture that the chain restaurant achieves (although I’ll use more cinnamon sugar filling next time). I ran out of time and froze the remaining dough. I thawed a pound, and then cloaked and formed a loaf for the loaf pan, let it rest for 90 minutes, gave it an egg wash, and baked it at 350 for 40 minutes. It didn’t come close to baking all the way through. The middle was almost liquid in parts. I’ve had great success with master boules, pan loaves of various sizes, pizza crust, and with brioche cinnamon rolls. I can’t figure out what went wrong, unless I was supposed to knead it, but I didn’t catch that in the instructions. Ideas?

    1. If I’m understanding correctly, it sounds like the dough worked great at the time of the original mixing, but it did not freeze well—that the defrosted dough didn’t bake through. Is it possible that the dough was just too wet? If it was, it would work okay for the initial batch, but after freezing, maybe not. Changes in your oven temperature? Very cold environment during the 90 minute rest? You might get by. It’s just a longer baking time.

  17. You’re understanding correctly. No oven changes or atmospheric swings. Maybe too wet, as you said. I’ll see if I can pull off the cinnamon rolls again, this time with thawed dough instead of fresh.

  18. I have your book and have made the master recipe and several other Ryes, wheats and peasant breads that worked well and rose significantly in the 2 hour time frame. But the Brioche barely rose at all? Is this normal?

    1. When you say “didn’t rise,” do you mean it was like a brick, with no hole-structure in the crumb? Or did it expand, but do so sideways? The latter will still be quite delicious, but not shaped the way we like. My answer depends on how that went. Also, did you let the eggs come to room temperature before using?

      1. Hi Jeff, I used the brioche recipe from the book which doesn’t mention room temperature eggs. My dough has barely risen after 2 hours. Is it still useable? Should I put it in the fridge or leave it out longer to see if it will rise more.

      2. It’s definitely still usable. Leave it out for another hour, then refrigerate but don’t use it for another day. Should work out…

  19. Hi, l tried out Brioche recipe. Dough seemed pretty good, but a few questions. Can I use sugar rather than honey? If so what amount would you suggest? My first loaf tastes good with good crumb, however the top was not great. It pulled apart in several spots. Ideas on what I did wrong there?

    1. Sugar will work as a one for one volume swap for honey. You can start messing with differences in the water content, but I don’t think it’s worth it; this just won’t make much difference. About the top pulling apart, try a longer rest and see if that helps. Also check your oven temperature, it may be baking too quickly.

    1. I assume that you mean yeast and that there’s a typo here. I’ve never done the gram equivalency for fresh yeast, but by volume you use about twice as much fresh yeast as granulated dried. That said, my method works with low yeast versions as well, put low yeast into my search bar above.

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