Bouchon Bakery Brioche

I finally did it. I tackled something from the Bouchon Bakery cookbook. Just in case you’re unfamiliar, it’s probably the most beautiful cookbook I have ever touched. It’s my kind of coffee table book. Who needs a huge tome about art or tasteful nudes when you have food porn to decorate your living room? Yeah, I said it – food porn. I basically see it as the permanent equivalent of Bon Appetit magazine which usually also seems pretty unattainable. I have flipped through it a ridiculous amount of times and daydreamed about Sebastian Rouxel berating me in French while crafting the perfect croissant or baguette (in my brain he smells like the tantalizing combination of freshly baked bread and a subtle and unidentifiable French cologne) but I have never actually made anything from it before. It was the first thing I baked in my new place and that seems appropriate I think. Don’t be afraid of this cookbook just because I was – the recipes are extremely well-written and the brioche behaved exactly as these two amazingly talented French dudes said it would. How else could I explain this perfect symmetry?

I’m talented, but usually achieving near-perfection is more difficult than this. I found the recipe online from good ol’ NPR because I still feel a little too awed to reproduce it, even an adapted version. Make this brioche kids – it’s ridiculously satisfying and there are so many nice things to do with day-old brioche. More on that in the next post 🙂