Eat for Less: Savoury Brioche Couronne

It is Friday evening again and time for something fancy, inexpensive and delicious. It is ‘eat for less’ day.

Today I’ll share the way I make Savoury Brioche Couronne; this is also known as ‘crown’ and soon you’ll see why.

I go this recipe from Paul Hollywood, e.g. the God of Baking. This is bread, sandwich and pie in one. Absolutely wonderful on a summer evening with a bowl of Greek salad.

What I’ve contributed is that I’ve modify it by making it easier to make the dough – if you’ve ever tried to make brioche dough you’d know that it is very sticky, difficult to handle and easy to mis-judge how soft/hard to leave it.

While I have achieved some level of mastery in the kitchen – and in baking – a Goddess of Baking I’ll never be.

Thus, I make the brioche dough in my breadmaker and it turns out absolutely splendid.

This is how I make the brioche dough:

Yeast                                                  1 and 1/4 tsp
Strong White Flour                    400 g
Sugar                                                  2 tsp
Salt                                                      1 tsp
Butter (cold cut in cubes)       100 g
Water                                                 220 ml
Egg                                                       1

Put the ingredients in your breadmaker in the order set out by the instructions for the particular make (some bread-making machines take water first, for instance).

Don’t forget to start it on to ‘Brioche-Dough’ setting. This will take about 2 to 3 hours depending on what breadmaker you have.

[Making this dough by hand is such a b*gger that I’m not even going to talk about this here; if you don’t have a breadmaker get one: it pays for itself in about three months and you will be eating bread that has four to five ingredients in it rather than fourteen as in the bread you buy.]

You also need:

• Parma ham                                                    1 packet
• Mozzarella                                                    1 ball
• Egg                                                                     1
• Parmesan cheese                                      20 g

Once the dough is ready, place it on a flat surface, fold it several times and roll out roughly in a square.

After that, put on Parma ham, mozzarella in small pieces and basil. This what it looks like:

Roll it in starting from the long side. When it is like a long sausage, cut it lengthwise with a sharp knife (careful not to cut the surface where the crown is; I have already cut two of my favourite silicone mats).

Holding the end, twist the cut bits around and shape like a circle. This is what you end up with (this needs a bit of practice and the first time I ended up with a very bad proxy of that; it was still tasty):

Place on a baking tray lined with a silicone mat or baking paper.

Put in the oven at 40C until it doubled in size.

Brush the top of the crown with beaten egg and scatter a bit of grated parmesan. Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes.

Can serve hot or cold. I like it with salad but can see how it goes with soup.

Also perfect for picnics!

This is posh grub! And everyone can eat for less if they take the trouble to make their food.

Tell me how you found it when you try!