Chocolate chip brioche adds another level of indulgence to already delicious brioche bread. Serve it as a dessert bread with a little butter and honey, or toast it and add some jam. Or knock it out of the park with some chocolate chip brioche french toast.
Chocolate Chip Brioche Bread
Brioche is an enriched bread from the French that contains butter and eggs, and typically milk and sugar. The fat gives the brioche a soft tender crumb, and the eggs give the bread a yellowish tint. Brioche gets a beautiful brown crust when baked. It is great for sweet dishes like cinnarolls, bread pudding, brioche french toast, or simply as a dessert bread with butter and honey. Brioche is also delicious in savory dishes like burger buns, dinner rolls, or a croque madame.
If you are going to go in the sweet direction with your brioche, you can add chocolate chips to take it to another level. The process is as simple as mixing in chocolate chips after the dough has been mixed and kneaded. Add the chocolate chips and then start your mixer again at a slow speed. Mix the dough for a couple minutes or so until the chocolate chips are distributed throughout the dough.
Chocolate Chip Brioche French Toast
Chocolate chip brioche french toast is an absolutley delicious way to use this bread. Serve the french toast with some butter, syrup, rasberries, whipped cream, and or powdered sugar. Or you can use the chocolate chip brioche in a cinnamon roll with a glaze. Or simply serve it with some butter and honey for breakfast, dessert, or a sweet snack.
Chocolate Brioche Ingredients
The chocolate brioche ingredients I use here are typical brioche ingredients plus chocolate chips. One key difference in my recipe, compared to other brioche recipes, is that I use nut milk, specifically cashew milk (other brioche recipes typically use whole milk). I do this for health reasons to cut back on dairy (I don’t eliminate dairy however; I still use butter). Whole milk is replaced with cashew milk in all of my bread baking. I have used cashew milk in brioche, pain de mie, parker house rolls, japanese milk bread, etc., and the results are great.
Chocolate Chip Brioche Ingredients:
- AP flour – all purpose flour is the best choice for brioche. A bread flour would be too much gluten. We don’t want the brioche to be chewy.
- Cashew milk – as discussed above, I substitute cashew milk for whole milk for health reasons, i.e. to reduce the amount of dairy
- Sugar – brioche is a little sweet
- Eggs – give the brioche its color and contribute to flavor and texture
- Instant or active dry yeast – our little leaveners
- Unsalted butter – the butter adds flavor and helps make the bread soft and tender
- Salt
- Chocolate Chips
Making Chocolate Brioche Bread
Making chocolate brioche bread is the same as making brioche, except you add chocolate chips at the end of the mixing/kneading process.
MIX: Add all of your dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with a dough hook. Then add all of the wet ingredients, except the butter. Knead for about five minutes, and then add butter a bit at a time. Continue kneading for about five minutes. Add the chocolate chips, and mix on a low speed until the chips are relatively evenly distributed
PROOF: Put dough into an oiled bowl and let proof until roughly doubled in size, approximately one to two hours, depending on temperature.
SHAPE: Roll dough out onto a floured work surface. Flatten dough out to a rectangle that is roughly 0.5 inches thick.
SHAPE: Fold the top two corners in until they touch. Then begin to roll the dough down from the top. During each roll, make sure to keep the dough tight. You are rolling the rectangular dough into a tight log, that should be the length of your loaf pan.
SHAPE: Position the dough so that the seam is down. Tuck in the ends of the rolled dough. Place into a well greased loaf pan, keeping the seam on the bottom.
FINAL PROOF: Cover the loaf and allow to proof again, for about 30 minutes to an hour. When it is ready, the dough should spring back when pushed.
BAKE: Score the loaf and bake in 350 deg F oven for 20 minutes. Remove bread from oven and brush with eggwash. Bake for another 10-15 minutes. The crust should be golden brown, and the internal temperature should be at least 180 deg F.
Serving Chocolate Chip Brioche
Serve the delicious chocolate brioche as breakfast (e.g. chocolate chip brioche french toast). Or serve it as a snack by itself or with some butter and honey. Or you can serve it as a dessert by toasting it and spreading with nutella and berries, or making a chocolate brioche bread pudding.
Chocolate Chip Brioche
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with dough hook
Ingredients
- 5.5 cups AP flour
- 1 cup butter, unsalted room temperature
- 5 tbsp granulated sugar
- 0.75 cups cashew milk
- 6 whole eggs 5 are for dough, 1 is for egg wash
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 packet active dry yeast 2 tsp
- 1 cup semi sweet chocoate chips
Instructions
- Warm up cashew milk to around 110 deg. Add the yeast and about 1 tbsp of the sugar and whisk well. Let sit for five minutes
- In stand mixer bowl, add dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt). Mix with dough hook to homogenize dry ingredients.
- Whisk 5 eggs in mixing bowl. Add eggs to dry ingredients. Add cashew milk mixture. Run the stand mixer with a dough hook on a medium speed for about four minutes.
- Add the butter to the dough, but don't add all at once. Add roughly one quarter at a time and wait for the butter to integrate into the dough before adding the next quarter. Knead for another five minutes. Make sure to stop periodically to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
- Set the mixer to a low speed. Add in the chocolate chips gradually. Mix until the chocolate chips are approximately evenly distributed.
- Remove the dough from the mixer bowl and into a large oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof somewhere that is room temperature or warmer.
- When dough is doubled in size (about 1 hour), put dough on a floured flat work surface. Divide into two equal pieces (each will be one loaf). For one loaf, punch dough down into a flat rectangle
- Shape the dough by rolling the top of the rectangle down toward you. Keep the dough tight as you roll.
- When you have rolled the dough, pinch the seam closed and place it on the bottom. Put your shaped dough into a well oiled bread pan (9" x 5")
- Cover and allow the loaf to prove one final time in a warm location for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F for the final 15 minutes
- Score the top of the loaf (a short serrated knife, like a tomato knife works best in my opinion). You can make one long score down the middle parallel to the long side of the loaf. Or you can make multiple short scores along the length of the loaf.
- Bake loaf in 350 deg oven for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the remaining egg in a bowl. After 20 minutes, remove loaf from oven and brush the top with egg wash. Place the loaf back in the oven in the same position but rotated 180 deg. Bake for another 5-15 minutes, or until top is golden brown and the center has a temperature of 180 deg (or higher)
- Let rest five minutes on a rack or trivet to allow air flow. Remove from bread pan and let rest another ten minutes before slicing.
