Are Those Boobs In Your Oven Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

I know it looks bad, but it’s not porn.  I swear.  It’s more like pastry that went slightly awry – but only where appearances are concerned.  This stuff totally rocked the house in the taste department.  To borrow a line from Adrian Monk, here’s what happened . . . . .

I was reading a new food blog I found called Baking My Way Through Germany.  The blogger was writing about how she recently discovered brioche in cooking school.  Of course, that reminded me that I hadn’t had brioche in forever so I decided to make some.  I dug out my recipe and got started.

The dough was in the bread machine doing its thing while I worked on an article and then made some lunch.  Long story short, I got busy and forgot all about it.  Because pastry dough is sweeter than most of its counterparts, it rises really well.  In this instance, it was trying to burst out of the bread machine by the time I remembered to check on it.  I peeled it off the lid of the machine and knocked it back down a bit.

With the dough once again under control, or so I thought, I proceeded according to plan.  I formed six brioches and put them in my muffin pan.  I checked on them about halfway through the regular baking time and that’s when I found the boobs in my oven.  The little buggers had clearly risen way beyond my expectations.  I had to alter the cooking time and temperature, but they turned out pretty well.  I do try to avoid eating food that looks like body parts, but I made an exception this time.  They were totally delish!

If you want to make your own, I recommend paying attention to the dough and making twelve of them instead of six. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 cup + 3 tbsp of milk (warm it in the microwave before adding it to the bread machine)

4 ½ tbsp of butter

2 eggs

3 ½ cups of bread flour

3 ½ tbsp of sugar

1 ½ tsp of salt

1 ½ tsp of bread machine yeast

As always, follow your bread machine manufacturer’s instructions for adding the ingredients to your machine.  Set your machine to the dough setting and pay close attention to it.  When the dough is ready, remove it from the bread machine pan onto a lightly floured surface.   Separate it into twelve pieces.  From each piece, tear off a smaller piece for the top.

Roll the large pieces into balls and place them into your muffin pan.  I used a stoneware pan from The Pampered Chef and greased each cup with a small amount of butter.

With your fingertips, make a small indentation in the top of each large ball.  Roll the small pieces into balls and place them into the indentations.

Brush them well with a beaten egg and sprinkle with lots of sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

If you insist on recreating my accidental version, here is what I did:

Let the dough rise for at least an extra half hour.  Make six of them instead of twelve.  Bake for 13 minutes at 375 degrees, and then lower the temp to 325 for another 10 minutes.  Turn the oven off but wait another 15 minutes before you remove the pastries.

Serve with butter and your favorite homemade (or store bought) jam.  They are boob-i-licious!!