Half a sugar rose brioche

I read Alpha Baker Kimberlie's early post on making the Sugar Rose Brioche just as I started making mine. I saw she had made double the brioche dough recipe and thought, 'that's a good idea, I should have done that'. Then while my loaf was baking I read Marie's post and realised I really should have done that. I completely missed the instruction to double the dough recipe. This explained why I had such a good covering of sugar and cinnamon and why I thought my loaf would never rise enough to fill up the cake tin specified in the recipe. And it was lucky I realised in time that my loaf probably didn't need the whole cooking time since it was half the size. 

The loaf was still a little dry because I hadn't rescued it quite early enough. However it was extra sweet and cinnamony from the accidental double spice amount and it made delicious toast. This was fun to make and not as difficult as you might think to get that twisty shape. I also liked the texture this time although often I prefer more structured bready textures to brioche. 

Here I submit the evidence that I strained the egg AND the sugar and cinnamon. And I was rewarded for this unusual meticulousness by a shower of cinnamon all over the kitchen. You would be amazed how far the dust flew from those few teaspoons of spice.

I used quite a bit of flour to dust the dough since we're at full strength heat and humidity at the moment in Darwin and both the dough and I were sweating as soon as I took it out of the fridge. I can't tell if it made a (negative) difference to the dough. It seemed fine to me.

This is a circle of dough. I mean it is meant to be a circle even though it looks a lot lik a wonky rectangle. I managed to roll it out to the approximate size that was specified for the double recipe so once I rolled it up my swirls must have been a lot closer together then the full recipe. When we're talking more sugar and cinnamon to the crumb-age, I can't see any negative here.

I thought to myself as I was sprinkling, 'this recipe gives really good coverage of the sugar and cinnamon...'.

I rolled crossways from the corner of my rectangle to trick it into becoming a circle. 

The final cutting and shaping process for the loaf was a little intimidating. I managed to get through the cutting and twisting steps more or less okay, with just a few 'what?!'...'oh', moments. But when it came to the final curling of the dough onto the cake tin, I felt like I was playing twister, with all my limbs involved in holding pieces of dough, while simultaneously looking at the instructions. Only to find them lacking an explanatory picture for that crucial step. So many other photos, why none of the final shaping of the loaf?! On the other hand I have no photographic evidence of that step either (no more limbs to operate the camera) so maybe I shouldn't point the wooden spoon.

This made a pretty large loaf even with half the dough, so I imagine the full size must have been pretty big. It is a pretty impressive loaf which requires more patience and time than high level skills. It would make an eye-catching contribution to a breakfast or morning tea, even at half the recipe.

Next week we're making Hazelnut Praline Cookies.