Unlike other breads which are made with flour, salt and water, brioche bread is made with an enriched dough. Enriched because it contains lots of butter and eggs and in this case sugar. If you do not want to make a sweet brioche you can leave the sugar out.

If you want to make this an overnight brioche recipe you put it in the fridge after shaping and take it out of the fridge in the morning. Let it come to room temperature and bake.

Ingredients for sweet brioche loaf

400 grams strong white bread flour

100 grams caster sugar

200 grams unsalted butter

half teaspoon salt

4 large eggs

3 tablespoons milk

7 grams fast action yeast

To brush on top of the sweet brioche brioche

one small egg, beaten

2 teaspoons milk

Method for making sweet brioche loaf

Put the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a bowl of a stand mixer, attach a dough. (If you do not have a stand mixer you can use any bowl large enough to hold your ingredients and leave room to rise.)

The dough can be made by hand but it is quite sticky, you may need to put it in the fridge to firm up a bit to make handling easier. It will eventually come together but it take a longer time.

Crack the eggs into a jug and add the milk, whisk these together.

Turn on the mixer to a medium speed and slowly add in the egg mixture. If there is flour mixture stuck on the sides of the bowl, stop the mixer and use a spatula to ease the mixture into the bowl.

Mix this until the dough is smooth, may take about 10 minutes. *If you are using your hands oil them and then knead the dough in the bowl until smooth. When the dough get’s stick again, oil your hands again and keep kneading*

Add the butter a little at a time and make sure it is well mixed in before adding the next amount, especially when mixing by hand.

Knead for about 10 more minutes are adding the last amount of butter.

Remove the dough hook and cover the dough and leave to rise until doubled in size.

Prepare a 450gram or 500 gram loaf tin by putting baking paper on the bottom and sides and put to one side.

When it has doubled, flour a work surface and put your dough on it

Shape the sweet brioche loaf into a loaf shape and place the dough in the loaf tin

Cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise for about an hour or two until it reaches the top of your tin

When the sweet brioche dough is ready, preheat the oven to 180 Celsius (Fan oven)

Put the egg and milk in a small bowl, mix together and brush mixture on top of the sweet brioche bread.

Bake for a further 40-45 minutes until golden brown on top

Remove from the oven and leave it in the tin for about 10 minutes remove from the tin. Tap gently at the bottom and if it sounds hollow, it is ready.

Remove baking paper and leave to cook completely before serving. You could make some glace icing or water icing on top if you like