Brioche w/ Baked Camembert Cheese | Tear & Share Bread

Brioche is the most versatile bread dough out there. You can make pretty much anything with it. And this might be one of the ultimate uses for it.

Gooey French cheese melted as it’s baking together with the brioche. Studded with garlic slices and rosemary. This would make a great centrepiece for your festive table. Tear and share. Dip the brioche in the cheesy goodness and enjoy!

And it looks absolutely beautiful too. You can change the design to your liking as well. Make the dough balls larger or smaller to your liking.

If Camembert is too strong for you, then you can swap it for brie.

The brioche recipe is the same one I use in most of my brioche videos, so if you have made it before you will know the process. If you would like to see more uses for it, then check out the Brioche playlist on my channel where there are plenty more delicious recipes.

In the video I use only half of my brioche base recipe. The reason for using only half is that I always like to save the other half for another project. And the reason for making a larger amount of dough to begin with is that my mixer (and most likely yours too) would not be able to pick up and mix a small amount of dough effectively.

So, I would suggest making the full amount of brioche dough and then either making two of these cheesy brioche bad boys or using the second half of dough for another project.

The dough will take around 25 minutes of total mixing time so you must ensure that all the ingredients are stone cold before you begin. The eggs, butter, water, and flour! I even put my flour in the freezer, so it gets properly cold alongside the dough hook. And I refrigerated the mixing bowl. Do not even attempt making this without chilling your ingredients because you will fail. To learn more about dough temperature control click here.

Watch the video down low for detailed instructions.

Ingredients

For the dough –

500g (1.1lb) strong white bread flour, chilled

45g (1.6oz) water, chilled

250g (8.8oz) eggs, chilled

13g (0.45oz) salt

60g (2.1oz) sugar

8g (0.28oz) instant dry yeast or 9.6g (0.33oz) active dry yeast or 24g (0.84oz) fresh yeast

200g (7oz) cold butter that has been pressed between baking paper to make it soft

To finish the bread –

1 egg for glazing

Sea salt to sprinkle on top

Camembert cheese

Rosemary sprigs

Sliced garlic

Method

1. Make the dough. In a mixing bowl combine the water, salt, yeast, sugar, eggs, and flour. Switch the mixer on 2nd (slow) speed. Mix for 10 minutes. After the first 10 minutes start adding the butter in chunks. Mix for another 5 minutes scraping the sides of the bowl down if need be. Once the butter has mixed into the dough turn the speed up to medium which on my mixer is the 4th Mix for around 7 minutes or until the dough stops sticking to the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl. Turn the speed back down to the 2nd (slow) setting. Keep mixing for another 3 minutes. The total mixing time should not exceed 25 minutes. *Desired dough temperature 25 – 26C (77 – 79F).
2. Shape the dough into a ball, place it into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
3. Fold.
4. Refrigerate for 1 more hour.
5. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and shape into balls. Wrap them in clingfilm and cold proof for up to 24 hours. I used one dough ball in the video and the other one for another project.
6. Weigh the dough and divide it into however many equally sized pieces or pieces of various sizes, if you would like to change the design. I was not sure how many I will need and ended up diving the dough into 23 but come final shaping time I used 18 and divided the remaining 5 into 9 smaller ones and came up with the design you can see in the video. The design and size of dough balls is totally up to you!
7. Pre-shape the dough pieces, cover them and leave to rest for 20 minutes.
8. Shape into balls and place around the cheese on a tray lined with non-stick paper.
9. Cover and ferment for around 3 hours. *During the final hour of fermentation preheat your oven to 160C (320F) with the fan on.
10. Brush the dough balls with the egg glaze. Leave to dry and brush again. Sprinkle with sea salt (optional). Slice the cheese and stuff some sliced garlic and rosemary sprigs inside it.
11. Bake for around 25 minutes. Turn the tray around halfway through the bake to get a nice and even crust.

The cheese will stay runny for around 30 minutes, so this bread should be eaten soon after baking. To time the brioche with your dinner you can leave it to ferment for 2.5 hours and place it in the fridge to slow down the fermentation. Bake it straight from the fridge when you are ready.

Keep in mind that the conditions in each kitchen are different, so fermentation times may vary for you. It is up to the baker to control the bread and react accordingly.

Your oven may be different too, so your baking time may vary.