I get several food-related emails every day. I usually just kinda glance over them and save a recipe or two now and again, but every once in a while, I see a recipe that I instinctively need to make immediately! The latest example is Brioche farcita alle mandorle e pistacchi – Brioche Filled with Almonds and Pistachios – from La Cucina Italiana.
The photo reminded me of a coffee ring we used to make back in the ’60s at The Donut Center in San Francisco – my first job. In reality, they were very different in appearance – it was the way it was laminated. I didn’t get a photo of mine cut – this is from the La Cucina website. It was the photo that made me say “immediately!” And how fortuitous that Easter was mere days away!
Italian recipes often call for Manitoba flour and./or Tipo 0 flour. I never have either. I use Tipo 00 as my all-purpose and generally but not exclusively King Arthur bread flour. I’ve found that about a 60/40 blend of bread flour to 00 flour and a bit of vital wheat gluten mimics the Italian flour blend pretty well.
Here’s the La Cucina recipe and my changes listed after…
Brioche Filled with Almonds and Pistachios
adapted from La Cucina Italiana
For the Brioche
- 250 g flour 0
- 250 g Flour Manitoba
substitute
- 200 g tipo 00 flour
- 300 g bread flour
- 6 g vital wheat gluten
- 150 g milk
- 150 g water
- 100 g butter
- 25 g sugar
- 11 g yeast
- 12 g salt
- 4 egg yolks
Filling
- 240 g icing sugar
- 175 g almond flour
- 175 g shelled pistachios
- 50 g butter
- 50 g cornstarch
- 10 g acacia honey
- 2 eggs
- vanilla
- lemon
- granulated sugar
To Complete
- 1 yolk
- orange peels in syrup
- Flour
- granulated sugar
Combine the 0 flour, 150 g of water, the milk, and the crumbled yeast in a bowl; whisk the ingredients together and let rise, covered, for 3 hours at room temperature.
Take the dough and add the Manitoba flour, sugar, salt, egg yolks, and butter. Knead the dough in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment until it begins to form a string and comes away from the sides of the bowl. Let it rest for 15 minutes, then finish kneading on a floured surface and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Blend the pistachios with a teaspoon of granulated sugar until they form a flour; mix it with the almond flour and powdered sugar, then knead in the eggs, honey, softened butter, and cornstarch. The mixture will become soft. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Roll out the risen dough into a rectangle, the size of the baking tray.
Place it vertically in front of you and place about 500 g of the filling mixture, rolled out into a rectangle, on half of the rectangle.
Fold the risen dough over it and flatten it well with your hands and then with a rolling pin.
Repeat the process, placing the remaining filling on half of the smaller rectangle. Press it down slightly with your hands and a rolling pin.
Roll out the resulting layered dough with a rolling pin into a rectangle about 1 cm thick and cut it into three strips.
Brush them with a little egg and sprinkle with orange zest, then roll each strip up to form three “salami rolls.” Braid them together and place the resulting braid on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Brush the surface with egg yolk and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake the filled brioche at 180°C for about 30 minutes, covering it with aluminum foil if you see it getting too dark.
I felt a bit like a Mad Scientist making this. Lots of measuring and grinding… Besides the flour blend substitution, I did another – apricot jam instead of the orange peels in syrup. Mainly because I didn’t have any orange peels in syrup, but, also, apricots and almonds go so well together. It seemed a better choice. I just spread on a really thin layer before rolling up the strips.
In the grand scheme, I think it came out better than I expected! And it was worth the effort.
And it may be time to revisit a coffee ring from the Donut Center days…
