This dough is an alternative to brioche - although not as rich - and much quicker to make.

Offer it to your customers as an alternative to English tea breads. It’s a recipe I teach regularly in my bread classes, and everyone finds it very simple to make. As kids, we used to eat small baguettes made with this dough for breakfast, or at tea-time, which we called ’le quatre-heure’. When we came home from school we would have them halved, with a bar of Poulain chocolate inside - these were the bars that every child ate, with the picture of a pony on the wrapper. You can also bake this in a tin and slice it for croque monsieur.

 

Ingredients

Makes 43 x 200g baguettes

Strong bread flour: 5kg

Full fat milk: 2.5kg

Yeast: 100g

Unsalted butter:600g

Caster sugar: 400g

Free-range eggs: 20

Salt: 90g

 

Method

1. Break the yeast into the flour then add the rest of the ingredients to the flour and mix for four minutes on slow, followed by 6 to 7 minutes on fast until the dough is smooth.

2. Rest the dough for at least one hour at an ambient temperature and covered.

3. Shape into baguettes.

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the baguettes are a dark golden brown in colour.

 

* Adapted from Dough by Richard Bertinet (Kyle Cathie), with photography by Jean Cazals