It seems that everyone and their momma has a Kitchen Aid mixer these days. That is, everyone except me. A particularly frustrating predicament to be in, particularly when there are are so many recipes for things such as delicious, butter brioches out there. They mean that a person like me can do nothing but sit on the sidelines, gnashing my teeth and sulking at my inability to create these morsels.
Now, I’d been staring at this recipe for pains aux raisins in The Cook’s Book for as long as I’d had the book, whimpering sadly as I read and reread the instructions that asked for a mixer with a dough hook. ARGH! Such delicious scroll-ness out of my grasp, how dare it exist??
There must have been something in the air on Sunday, as I don’t know what it was but I just snapped. NO! I declared – I would not let the lack of a mixer stand in the way of me and this Pâte à Brioche Feuilletée, a dough which my cookbook promised would taste like a brioche, but have the crispness and lightness of a croissant (and has enough calories to take the place of both, no doubt!)
I decided to use the plastic dough blade that came with my food processor in place of a mixer and dough hook, and to my disbelief it actually worked! I had a pliable, buttery dough that felt as soft as a lover’s embrace in my hands, and held just as many promises as a kiss. I’d like to think that I’d finally reached sweet dough nirvana – a place where croissants walk hand in hand and brioches skip merrily along butter-lined paths.
This is not a quick dough, in fact it will take you approximately three hours to make the dough alone (and a few extra hours to make the actual pains aux raisins) but the taste is definitely worth the hard slog. And an added bonus, the proofed scrolls can be frozen for up to a month, so you’ll be able to space out the calorie-rush over a few weeks, as well as hopefully being able to share them with a few friends and family alike 
Pâte à Brioche Feuilletée
(from The Cook’s Book)
Ingredients
25g instant dried yeast
3 large eggs, very cold
750g strong plain white flour(white bread flour)
50g caster sugar
10g salt
40g full-fat milk powder
310mL ice water
300g unsalted butter, chilled
1. Place yeast, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, milk powder and water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook OR into a food processor fitted with the plastic dough blade (NOT the metal one) and mix together till the dough is well combined and smooth.
2. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, then wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and place in the freezer to cool.
3. While the dough is cooling in the freezer, lightly cream the butter till soft (be sure not to aerated it too much). When the butter is soft, remove the dough from the freezer and turn it onto a floured surface and roll it out into a rectangle 3x as long as it is wide.
4. Place HALF the butter on the bottom edge of the dough, then use the palm of your hand to gently and evenly push the butter over the bottom two-thirds of the dough. Don’t worry if the butter melts – it’s meant to melt, this is why you’re using your hand. The heat from your hand will soften and melt the butter so it ‘spreads’ with more ease.
5. Fold the dough into thirds – folding down the top unbuttered third towards the middle first, then the buttered third on top of that (like a business letter). Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the freezer for 30 minutes, them refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll it out and spread with the remaining butter as before, then fold into thirds and chill in the freezer and refrigerator as before.
You can use this dough to make some divine pains aux raisins it turns the divine dough into a sublime pastry!
[tags]Pâte à Brioche Feuilletée, puff pastry, pastry, dough, sweet bread, dessert, croissants, brioche, pains aux raisins, scrolls, buns, recipe[/tags]
