When it comes to breads, brioche is one of the most buttery, luxurious, and absolutely delicious breads to make. It’s also a really versitile dough, and you can make it into almost anything – sweet or savory! In this article, I want to show you 10 things that you can make with brioche dough besides a typical loaf. If you have some extra brioche dough sitting in your fridge, you can make any recipe on this list.
So, before we dive into each specific item, here are ten things you can make with brioche dough:
- Doughnuts
- Hamburger Buns
- Cinnamon Rolls
- Super Soft Sandwich Bread
- Brioche a tete
- Dinner Rolls
- Pull-Apart Monkey Bread
- Pesto Brioche Swirl Bread
- Pain aux Raisins
- Brie en Brioche
If you need a brioche recipe, try this one:
– My Sourdough Brioche Recipe
10 Things to Make with Brioche Dough
1. Doughnuts
Doughnuts (at least yeasted doughnuts) are nothing more than rings of sweetened, enriched bread dough that has been fried to golden perfection. Sweetened, enriched bread dough – that sounds like brioche to me! If you’ve got some extra brioche dough chilling in your fridge. You’re just a few hours away from amazing doughnuts.
To make brioche doughnuts, take your dough out of the fridge and roll it to about a 1/4″ with a rolling pin. Start cutting rings out of the dough with a biscuit cutter or a large drinking glass. Then you can cut out holes in the middle with a smaller glass or even a shot glass.
Cover up the brioche rings and let them rest on a sheet of parchment paper for 1-2 hours until they are noticeably puffier than before. Fry them in a vegetable oil on medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes per side until they are golden brown. Dust with powdered sugar and you’ve got some delicious homemade doughnuts!
2. Hamburger Buns
Hamburger buns are a classic way to use up extra brioche dough. Brioche hamburger buns end up softer and fluffier (and way better tasting) than super market buns that don’t contain real egg or butter. If you have brioche dough in the fridge, why not make some burgers this weekend and put the dough to good use!
To make hamburger buns, take your brioche dough out of the fridge and divide it into equal-sized pieces. As a general rule, hamburger bun dough balls should weigh between 100-120 grams, or about 4 ounces each. Shape each piece of dough tightly into a ball and space them out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover them up and let them proof until almost completely doubled in size. Brush the tops of each dough ball with egg wash and then top with sesame seeds (optional). Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350°F.
Some of My Favorite Baking Tools (Affiliate Links):
Baker of Seville Bread Lame
Oval Banneton Basket
Non-Stick Bread Pan
Non-Stick Focaccia Pan
3. Cinnamon Rolls
Cinnamon Rolls are the sweetest and fluffiest when they’re made with good brioche-style dough. You really can’t go wrong with butter, milk, and eggs, when it comes to indulgently sweet baked goods. So, if you’ve got some extra brioche dough in the fridge that you don’t know what to do with, make some cinnamon rolls! You’ll be glad that you did.
For best results with cinnamon rolls, chill your brioche dough in the fridge until it is solid before trying to roll the dough flat. Chilled dough is a lot easier to roll out. Brioche dough will work well for almost any cinnamon roll recipe, but I recommend following this recipe from King Arthur Baking Company. You can skip the instructions for making the dough if you’ve already got your own brioche on hand.
4. Super Soft Sandwich Bread
Typical sandwich breads are already enriched with butter, eggs, and milk (usually in small amounts). Why not go all the way and turn your brioche dough into a sandwich loaf? It will be the softest and fluffiest sandwich bread you’ve ever made.
Simply pre-shape about 800 grams of brioche dough into a ball and let it rest for 30 minutes. Then shape that ball of dough into an oblong sandwich loaf shape. You can follow my tutorial from YouTube on how to shape sourdough bread for a loaf pan. It will be the same exact shaping process.
5. Brioche à tête
Brioche à tête is probably one of the most classic ways to make brioche in France. Parisien brioche, or brioche à tête, is a small breakfast sweet bread made from brioche dough, baked in a fluted cup. A small dough ball is positioned on top of a larger dough ball in the cup to make the brioche look like it has a head (tête = head). Often, the final product is finished with a sprinkle of pearl sugar or some type of sugar for decorating.
You can bake your own brioches à tête in cupcake tins to save you the trouble of buying a specialized mold. Or you can go all out and buy a set of fluted brioche molds like these on Amazon. With your own brioche dough at home, you can try to free-hand the process, or follow the simple shaping and baking instructions from Saveur.com here.
6. Dinner Rolls
Dinner rolls are basically smaller versions of hamburger buns. Is your mind blown? So, turning brioche dough into pillowy-soft dinner rolls couldn’t be easier!
All you need to do is divide your brioche dough into small pieces. Weigh them on your digital scale to be about 75 grams each for perfectly sized dinner rolls. Then, shape each roll into a ball and place them into a parchment-lined cake pan, or a non-stick cake pan. Let them proof until doubled-in-size, brush with egg wash, and then bake at 375°F for 25-30 minutes.
7. Pull-Apart Monkey Bread
Monkey bread, that deliciously caramely pull-apart sweet bread, is often made with store-bought biscuit dough as a shortcut. But, monkey bread is so much better when it’s made with brioche dough! If you’ve got some brioche dough in the fridge, you’re just steps away from making this recipe.
Grease a standard bundt pan, or almost any pan, with butter and then dust it with white sugar. This will form an outer coating on the monkey bread. Then, cut a generous portion of cold brioche dough into small pieces, about 50 grams each. Roll each piece of dough into a ball and then toss in cinnamon-sugar. Arrange the balls into the bundt pan and let them proof until doubled-in-size. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350°F until golden brown. You can even top these with caramel sauce when they come out of the oven. Follow the recipe here from Bon Appetit magazine for some guidance.
8. Pesto Brioche Swirl Bread
Pesto Brioche Swirl Bread is something that I completely made up on the spot. I decided that I wanted to make a sandwich loaf with layers of pesto and mozzarella cheese mixed throughout the dough. Sounds like a good idea right?
To make pesto brioche swirl bread, weigh out 800 grams of brioche dough. Flatten the dough into a rectangle about the same lenth as your bread pan. Then, spread the dough with a decent amount of prepared pesto. On top of the pesto, add a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. (When I did this, I used cheese slices, and the process was much more difficult – go with shredded cheese).
Roll up the dough like you’re making cinnamon rolls and transfer the roll, seam-side-down, into your bread pan. Let it proof until doubled-in-size, and bake it at 400°F for about 40-45 minutes.
9. Pain aux Raisins
While true French pain aux raisins are made by layering croissant dough with sugar and raisins, other countries commonly make this sweet bread with brioche dough. Brioche-style pain aux raisins bring a little extra sweetness by featuring rolled layers of buttery brioche, smooth pastry cream, and plump raisins.
Del’s Cooking Twist has a recipe for Brioche-style pain aux raisins that I highly recommend. Just prepare the pastry cream, raisins, and glaze, which you can add to your already made brioche dough to bring this recipe together.
10. Brie en Brioche
Brie en brioche is an idea that I got from the famous French baker, Richard Bertinet. He puts diagonal cuts in the top layer off of a wheel of brie cheese and adds some savory toppings. Then, he nestles the whole wheel of cheese into a base of brioche dough, sort of like topping a pizza.
Then he lets the dough proof until it’s puffy, and bakes the whole thing in the oven. The result is a bubbly, melty, wheel of brioche cheese, wrapped in a blanket of buttery brioche. You need to give this a try. Check out Richard Bertinet’s video on YouTube here.
Conclusion: 10 Things to Make with Brioche Dough
As you can see, there are a bunch of options when it comes to what to make with brioche dough. You can go sweet, but you can also go a little savory. Either way, this is a very versitile dough that you be used many different ways.
Some of My Favorite Baking Tools (Affiliate Links):
Baker of Seville Bread Lame
Oval Banneton Basket
Non-Stick Bread Pan
Non-Stick Focaccia Pan