apple tatin brioche

It would feel remiss to post and not to touch on the US election. While I’m not American, the intensity of Canadian news coverage of American elections always eclipses that of even our own elections – this year in particular for good reason. But most of all, I think we’re all wishing for our neighbours to have a peaceful, fair and democratic process to elect their new president, senate and congress. (Though, even the threat of current events aside, a legacy of voter suppression and gerrymandering continues to overly benefit Republicans.) These last few days have been emotional cartwheels for me – and I can’t imagine what it must be like for those in the states. Today has taken quite a hopeful turn, though some bitter truths and a conservative supreme court remains.

But because nothing around here happens without an irrelevant recipe, for such a stressful week here is one of my favourites. These apple tatin brioche have a burnished apple half and a thick core of vanilla-flecked custard sunk into a wispy brioche dough. This is how a bread-based dessert should be in my books: approximately half fruit and custard, covered with caramel and scented with vanilla.

I was inspired by Mari Bakery, which specializes in perfect roll cakes (which have motivated my own foray into roll cakes) and choux. I haven’t been in a long time, but I take a peek at their instagram page every so often, especially for roll cake inspiration. Last winter I came across their apple tatin brioche and immediately began pondering how I could try to make them myself.

It took me a few tries to settle on a method of caramelizing the apples. As in tarte tatin, I began with throwing butter and sugar into a cast iron pan to caramelize. I then added some extra water to help ensure the caramel softens and forms a sauce, mixed in the halved apples, and placed it all in the oven to soften. In the case of tarte tatin, no extra water is needed in the caramel – usually as the apples cook enough juices are released to soften the caramel. Not so in this case – either due to a shorter cooking duration, or perhaps the small orchard apples I was using were a bit dry.

I’ve actually since settled on an even easier way of caramelizing apples (though the above certainly works as well): make a caramel in a saucepan and then just throw in the apples, stirring together over the cooktop until enough juices are released to make a caramel syrup to coat the apples. A bit faster and less finicky than using the oven as well.

That process alone results in soft, caramel-imbued apple, but with a rather pallid appearance. For that reason I also added a thick caramel syrup that is brushed over the apple halves both before and after the brioche are baked to act as a glaze.

The second part of the recipe that took a bit of thinking was the pastry cream. I was inspired by the cross-section of the brioche at Mari bakery and how the pastry cream seems to be in a dome-like shape. I have no idea how they do it, but I tried to replicate the effect by freezing the vanilla pastry cream into small half-sphere molds domes. Just prior to baking, they’re pushed into the brioche dough and topped with a caramelized apple half – and it ended up working even better than I expected!

I love this method for a couple of reasons: first of all, it ensures you have a sizeable amount of filling compared to the usual poke down and fill process (compare these brioche to these skolebrod for instance! Edit: I’ve actually reworked the skolebrod to use the frozen dome method too since I love it so much…). Secondly, these brioche are baked for a very high-heat but short bake – and while the frozen pastry cream is cooked in the oven, it avoids becoming overcooked or curdled, retaining its smooth texture. Finally, I still sometimes mess up my pastry creams and end up with more of a runny creme anglaise than a creme pat. Regardless, when the pastry cream starts out frozen, you don’t need to worry about it running out the brioche while you’re trying to fill them… plus the quick bake in the oven is enough to set a mistakenly runny pastry cream. I have done and verified this – it’s pretty much pastry-cream-foolproof!

The last thing to watch out for is the baking process. These brioche deceive the eye; due to the substantial filling, the portion of dough is smaller than it actually appears. A shorter baking time is sufficient and will avoid drying out the bread.

• Servings: 8 petit brioche
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Makes 8 petit brioche. Brioche dough recipe adapted from Peter Reinhardt’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Brioche itself inspired by Mari Bakeshop. 

vanilla pastry cream

• 240g milk
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 1″ length of vanilla bean if you’re feeling fancy
• 3 egg yolks
• 12g cornstarch
• 20g granulated sugar

caramelized apples

• 75g granulated sugar
• 4 small apples (mine were local orchard apples about 6-7cm in diameter – this way they match up with the domes of custard; if you have large apples, try quarters of apple instead)

finishing caramel syrup

• 50g sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp water

sponge

• 24g all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp yeast
• 48g whole milk

brioche dough

• 160-180g all purpose flour (or bread flour)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 92g soft butter

assembly

• beaten egg, for egg wash

For the pastry cream, place the milk in a saucepan. Add the vanilla bean paste (or if you’re using a pod, split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds, then add the seeds and pod to the milk).

In a separate bowl, whisk the yolks, cornstarch and sugar.

Heat the milk until steaming. Slowly pour into the egg yolk mixture while whisking in order to temper the eggs.

Return to the saucepan and cook over medium while whisking constantly. Look for the pastry cream to begin to bubble and to thicken considerably. To ensure the starch is cooked, let the pastry cream cook at a bubble for at least 1 minute (all the while whisking very vigorously!). Transfer to a bowl, cover and let cool. Fill eight cavities of a 5cm diameter half sphere mold (you should have just enough pastry cream) and freeze.

For the caramelized apples, peel the apples, halve, and core them. You will need 8 halves from 4 apples, but I like to caramelize a few extra halves and then choose the best looking ones for the brioche.

Place the sugar in a small saucepan along with a few tablespoons of water. Heat until it dissolves and bring to a boil. Cook until the sugar caramelizes, reaching a deep amber colour.

Add the apple halves and return to the heat, stirring until the caramel softens again and forms a sauce. Adjust the heat so the caramel syrup is at a slight simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few additional minutes to lightly cook the apples. To prevent any denting to the apple halves, stir the apples gently with a rubber spatula.

Transfer the mixture to a heatproof container, cover and chill.

For the finishing caramel, put the sugar in a small saucepan and add enough water to dissolve the sugar. Bring the water to a boil until the sugar is dissolved, and then continue to boil until the sugar syrup caramelizes. Cook the sugar to a very dark caramel (this is important for the colour of the finished buns), then whisk in then 1 1/2 tbsp of water. Be careful while adding the water as the caramel may sputter a bit – if parts of the caramel harden, return to the heat, stirring until smooth. Set aside to cool until needed.

For the brioche dough, begin by mixing the ingredients for the sponge. Let ferment on the counter for around 30 minutes or until very bubbly.

Mix together the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl.

Whisk the 2 eggs into the sponge. Scrape into the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until a dough is formed.

Cover and let rest 10 minutes to allow gluten to begin to develop.

Incorporate the butter, either in the stand mixer (use the dough hook, add a bit at a time) or by hand. As it’s a fairly small amount of dough, I prefer doing it by hand. I incorporated the butter in 4-5 additions, kneading using the a slap and fold technique. Scrape the dough onto the counter. Spread part of the butter on the dough, fold over onto itself. Pick up the dough with both hands and slap it down onto the counter, stretching it towards you, then folding it over onto itself. Pick up the dough at a 90 degree angle so that when you slap it down again, it is rotated a quarter turn. Repeat the slap and fold until the butter is incorporated, then add the next addition of butter. With this technique you don’t need to additional flour as you knead – it will be quite messy but eventually at the end the dough will come together as a very soft and stretchy ball. Place in a bowl, cover and place in the fridge overnight to rise.

to assemble

The next day, take the dough out from the fridge and onto a lightly floured surface. Cut into eight pieces, each around 50g. Shape each piece into a ball. Roll out each ball into a disc around 8-9cm in diametre. Pick up each round of dough and use your thumb and first two fingers to press in the middle of the round to thin out the middle. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, cover lightly with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for around 2 hours or until quite puffed.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Press a sphere of frozen pastry cream, rounded side down, into the thinner centre of each brioche, pushing all the way down to the tray, bringing the top of the pastry cream nearly flush with the top of the brioche dough. Place an apple half, rounded side up, on top of each pastry cream sphere. Brush the brioche dough with egg wash.

Heat up the finishing caramel in the microwave for 10s to loosen (if needed) and brush the apple halves with a bit of the syrup. This first caramel glazing step is optional – doing this before baking helps keep the apple halves hydrated, but as it bakes some caramel will drip onto the bread dough and look a bit rustic and messy – I quite like it, but for a tidier look, do not brush the apples ahead of time.

Bake for around 12 minutes or until deeply browned (if not browned enough, you can broil for a couple minutes at the end). Rotate the breads halfway through baking. When you take the breads from the oven, brush the apple halves with the finishing caramel sauce (if it’s too thick, another 10 seconds in the microwave should suffice to slightly loosen it) for a thick, caramel glaze.