Joanne Chang’s Sugar Brioche Recipe
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Jan 15, 2024 • 5 min read
Add James Beard Award–winning chef Joanne Chang’s famous brioche au sucre buns to your repertoire of bread recipes. Enjoy these versatile, eggy brioche rolls as a brunch side, or as the base of a decadent bread pudding.
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About Joanne Chang
Joanne Chang is a Boston-based pastry chef and the co-owner of Flour Bakery. The award-winning pastry chef has a degree with honors in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Passionate about baking since her college days, Joanne left her consulting job to work in restaurants, eventually opening Flour Bakery in 2000. Since then, she expanded the bakery to eight more locations, opened a Taiwanese-inspired restaurant, won a reality TV cooking competition and a James Beard Award, and wrote five cookbooks.
Despite her long list of accolades, Joanne still delights in the alchemy of baking: simple ingredients that, when combined with the right techniques, transform into something magical. Learn to bake like a pro with Joanne Chang.
What Are Brioche au Sucre?
Brioche au sucre are small, no-knead bread rolls made out of brioche—a buttery French yeast bread dough—slit on top and covered in sugar. These rich, highly leavened sweet buns have a large crumb that’s great for soaking up liquids, like a bowl of chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). The egg yolks give sugar brioche bread a golden interior, and butter adds extra moisture. The result is a rich, buttery flavor and deep brown crust.
4 Tips for Making Brioche au Sucre
Whether it’s your first time making this flavorful, sticky dough, or you’re a bread-baking pro, follow these tips to make the best sugar brioche rolls possible.
- 1. Use fresh or active dry yeast. Rather than instant yeast, use either active dry yeast (which is a shelf-stable powder) or fresh yeast (which retailers sell in soft, compressed “cakes”) to make sugar brioche buns. Fresh yeast activates more quickly than dry yeast does, so if you use fresh yeast, the proofing process will be faster. However, fresh yeast is more difficult to work with and has a shelf life of about 2 weeks when refrigerated. Bakers must crumble and proof it (or test its activity) in a yeast mixture with warm water before using.
- 2. Use room-temperature butter. Using too-soft butter will result in runny dough resembling pancake batter, and it will take longer for the butter to absorb. However, too-cold butter is difficult for your stand mixer to mix. Err on the side of colder butter than warmer if you don’t have the room temperature stuff.
- 3. Make the dough in advance. Make the brioche dough for your sugar buns in bulk and freeze it for up to 5 days before baking it, after which the yeast will no longer be active. Place the dough in the freezer, tightly wrapped in plastic. Use dough stored in the refrigerator after 1 day.
- 4. Store properly. It’s best to enjoy brioche au sucre on the day you bake them. Store them in an airtight container for up to 2 days, and reheat them in a 300 degrees Fahrenheit oven for 3–4 minutes.
Joanne Chang’s Brioche Au Sucre Buns Recipe
makes
16 bunsprep time
30 mintotal time
55 mincook time
25 minIngredients
For the brioche dough:
For assembly:
Notes: The total time does not include up to 15 hours of inactive time. Additionally, you can divide the basic brioche dough recipe in half to make only 8 buns, and save the other half for a number of brioche variations, including sticky buns and brioche buns.
Make the brioche dough:
- 1
In a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the water, yeast, all-purpose flour, bread flour, sugar, and salt, and mix the ingredients together on low speed.
- 2
Add the 5 eggs to the mixture one at a time, and then increase the speed slightly.
- 3
Beat the mixture until all of the flour is incorporated and the dough is a pale yellow color, about 3 minutes.
- 4
Still using the hook attachment on the stand mixer, beat the ingredients together on low speed once again until the mixture comes together in one large dough ball that’s smooth and springy to the touch, about 3–5 minutes.
- 5
Turn the mixer to medium speed and add the butter piece by piece. Wait for each piece to incorporate before adding the next one.
- 6
Continue mixing on low speed for 6–8 minutes and up to 10 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, until all of the butter is thoroughly mixed in.
- 7
Continue mixing on medium speed for 6–12 minutes, pausing the mixer every few minutes to scrape the dough off the bottom of the bowl and the dough hook. The dough will eventually come together in a single stretchy mass as the butter gets absorbed and the gluten develops.
- 8
Increase the mixer speed to medium-high. In the last few minutes of mixing, the dough should start to gather together and slap around on the inside of the bowl. When the dough is done, it should be smooth and glossy, and hold together as one piece.
- 9
In a large bowl, let your dough rise (or proof). Cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours and up to overnight. The dough should double in size during its rising time.
Assemble and bake your buns:
- 1
Using a bench scraper or chef’s knife, cut and weigh out 16 equal pieces of the brioche dough.
- 2
Using your hands, shape the dough into balls. Working on an unfloured surface, cup 1 portion of dough under your hand and rotate your hand in a circular motion (this technique is called rounding). As the dough rolls around inside of your hand, it should catch on the work surface and form into a tight ball.
- 3
Proof your brioche buns. Place the rounded balls on a baking sheet, and cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap. Put the baking sheet in a warm spot for the dough to rise for 2–3 hours. The dough should double in size.
- 4
Heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 5
Brush the buns with the egg wash, and sprinkle each of them with about a ½ teaspoon of pearl sugar.
- 6
In the tops of each of the rolls, snip two slits about 1-inch deep, so they form an X shape.
- 7
Bake the buns until they’re golden brown on top and the X opens slightly, which should take about 25 minutes.
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