How to Make Just One Loaf of Brioche Bread

Learn how to make a fresh loaf of buttery brioche bread, baked to perfection in a standard loaf pan.

This beginner-friendly, same-day brioche recipe can be done in just a few hours and makes just one loaf of brioche with a shiny golden brown crust and a slightly dense crumb that is so perfectly soft and sweet.

Enjoy slices of this homemade brioche loaf toasted with whipped honey butter and fresh fruit, transformed into delectable French toast, or used to make your favorite grilled cheese sandwiches.

If you're new to bread making, don't be intimidated by brioche bread. You'll need a stand mixer with a dough hook, but I've got all the detailed step-by-step tips, tricks, and visuals you need to feel confident making this enriched dough! You can do this!

This brioche recipe is the same base recipe I adapted to make my apples and honey babka recipe and my chocolate chip brioche loaf recipe. It's super soft and supple, just really fun to work with. You can also use it for things like dinner rolls, soft brioche burger buns, homemade gooey cinnamon rolls, and fresh jelly-filled donuts!

Jump to:

• What is Brioche?
• About This Recipe
• Ingredient Notes
• 🍽 Mise en place (aka "the setup")
• How to Make Brioche Bread Dough
• Passing the Windowpane Test
• The First Rise (Bulk Fermentation)
• Shaping A Brioche Loaf
• The Second Brioche Rise
• Baking Brioche
• Important: Brioche and Temperature
• Cold Proofing Brioche Dough
• Substituting Active Dry Yeast for Instant Yeast
• Equipment Notes — Use a Stand Mixer!
• Practical Tips & Recipe Notes
• Recipe FAQ
• TL;DR — Recipe Summary
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

What is Brioche?

Brioche is a soft, buttery bread with a dense, even crumb. It's relatively versatile and can be used in both sweet and savory preparations — great for french toast and grilled cheese sandwiches, cinnamon rolls and garlic knots, doughnuts and burger buns.

Unlike lean bread doughs which are made using flour, water, salt, and yeast (like no-knead bread) and sometimes small amounts of sugar or fat (like in my foolproof soft white sandwich bread), brioche dough is enriched with butter, eggs, milk, and sugar. And brioche differs from challah bread in that challah bread is enriched without dairy products like milk and butter.

This added fat and sugar gives brioche dough its soft, fluffy texture.

In a traditional brioche bread dough, butter is gradually kneaded into the dough after the dough has gone through an initial kneading stage so the yeast can start working. This allows the butter to coat the gluten network in the dough instead of getting in its way.

While lean breads have a relatively short shelf life, the added butter in enriched doughs like brioche allows them to last much longer before going stale.

Within the world of brioche doughs the ratio of butter to flour can vary widely — a rich brioche (sometime's called "rich man's brioche") can be as much as 75% butter by baker's percentage, while a leaner brioche might only be 25% butter by baker's percentage.

The more butter the dough has the richer it is, and the stickier it is to work with due to how quickly the butter melts from the heat of your hands.

About This Recipe

My issue with a lot recipes to make brioche bread loaves is that pesky little "-ves" at the end. Basically, most brioche recipes make more than one loaf of bread. And while I love brioche, I don't always want two loaves of it!

So when I set out to make a base version of my go-to brioche recipe, I wanted it to make just one loaf of bread. You can certainly double or triple it if you want, and I specifically designed the recipe so it's easy to scale up without getting into measurements of half-an-egg or whatever.

My other issue with a lot of brioche bread recipes is that they require a long, slow rise time. And while I have included notes in this recipe for how to do a slow, cold rise, most of the time my ADHD gets the better of me and I don't plan far enough ahead.

So this brioche recipe has a relatively quick rise — about one hour after kneading and then another hour after you shape it, meaning the whole process can be done in about 3-4 hours start-to-finish. For an overnight rise, follow the instructions for the overnight rise in my brioche dinner rolls recipe.

With just 24% butter in the dough, my base brioche recipe makes a soft, pliant, and resilient dough that is really good at holding a lot of different shapes. You can braid it, twist it, roll it, knot it, etc.

For this brioche bread, I decided to go with a pull apart style loaf made of 8 small round balls of dough that join together as they rise. While you can pull apart the segments and butter them or use them to make small sandwiches, I usually cut this brioche loaf into thick slices instead.

Ingredient Notes

Here's what you'll need to make this soft and fluffy brioche bread loaf! See recipe card for quantities.

• All Purpose Flour - No fancy flour needed! I use King Arthur Baking's all-purpose flour which has a slightly higher protein content which makes it a little chewier. If you're using store brand flour, you may see better results with a bread flour. But regular all purpose should work just fine!
• Milk - Whole milk works best — the fat content is an important part of this enriched dough. If you use a reduced fat or skim milk, you may find the dough is too sticky to knead and shape! It will still work, you'll just need to dust in more flour in the mixing stage.
• Large Egg - If you use a different size egg, you may find the dough stickier or drier than it should be. It will still work, you just may need to add more milk or flour in the initial mixing stages! You'll need a second egg to do the egg wash on top, but if you only have one egg and need to skip the egg wash you'll be just fine, the crust just won't be quite as shiny and dark.
• Honey - To sweeten the dough. Yum! It also helps feed the yeast and encourages the bread to rise.
• Instant Yeast - Instant yeast is sometimes also called "rapid rise," "quick rise," or "bread machine" yeast. See "substituting active dry yeast" below for how to substitute active dry yeast.
• Salt - I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt which half as salty as other brands. As long as you measure your salt by weight, it doesn't matter what brand or type of salt you use. If you're measuring by volume, cut the amount of salt in half.
• Unsalted Butter - Make sure your butter is softened truly to room temperature. The colder and firmer your butter is, the longer it will take to incorporate into the dough.

Other Brioche Loaf Flavorings: You can add the zest of an orange or lemon to the dry ingredients, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract to the wet ingredients, up to 2 teaspoons ground spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, etc. to the dry ingredients. You can even use flavored herb compound butters (omit the salt) in place of plain unsalted butter, as long as you make sure the total weight of butter is the same as the recipe calls for.

How to Make Brioche Bread Dough

Brioche dough is enriched with fat from butter, milk, and eggs, as well as sugar from the honey. The milk, eggs, and honey are more liquid than solid, so they get mixed and kneaded with the dry ingredients first.

The butter is added after the dough has been mixed and kneaded once because it's a solid fat; If you include it from the start, it will coat the other ingredients and make it harder for them to absorb the liquid from the milk and eggs.

1. Mix the dough - Whisk the dry ingredients together, then whisk the wet ingredients together (except for the butter) and pour them into the dry ingredients. Mix everything together on low speed with a dough hook until it comes together in one mass on the dough hook and there aren't any dry bits of flour left in the bottom.
2. Knead the dough - Increase the speed and mix on medium (speed 3-4 on KitchenAid) until the dough passes the "windowpane test" (see gifs below). You may need to slowly drizzle in an additional 1-2 teaspoons milk or dust in some flour to get the dough to be soft, smooth, and stretchy. If the dough hasn't reached windowpane after about 7 minutes, drizzle in an additional ¼ teaspoon milk at a time while kneading, giving it time to incorporate before adding more, then cover the dough and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Knead 2-3 minutes more. It should get there!
3. Add the butter - Add the soft, room temperature butter 1 tablespoon at a time, letting it fully incorporate between each addition. This can take up to 10 minutes, be patient.
4. Knead the dough - Once the butter has been added, knead the dough again on medium speed until it passes the "windowpane test" a second time. This can take another 5-7 minutes!

Each time you add a new piece of butter, the butter will smear all over the walls of the bowl and coat the outside of the dough. Your dough may fall apart a little bit and spid the butter out as it slides around in the bowl.

The brioche dough might even fall off the dough hook completely. Just let the mixer keep running (or pause the mixer, gather the dough back into a ball, and then keep going) and it will come back together.

You're asking the gluten network to incorporate quite a lot of fat each time you add a new chunk of butter — be patient!

At the end of each mixing stage, the dough will be slightly tacky to the touch, but should clear the sides of the bowl. If the dough is super sticky, you can dust in more flour. If the dough is super dry, you may need to drizzle in more milk.

Once you pass the windowpane test (see below) a second time, then it's time to let the dough rise.

Passing the Windowpane Test

The "windowpane test" is a way of checking how well developed the gluten network in your dough is.

Tear off a tiny piece of dough, about the size of a grape. Coat it with flour and use your thumbs and fingers to gently press it into a flat shape from the center out.

When you can stretch it quite thin in the center without it tearing, you've passed the windowpane test.

NOTE: Even dough that passes the windowpane test will tear eventually if you keep stretching it. As long as you get the center thin enough to almost see light through before it tears, you're fine.

The First Rise (Bulk Fermentation)

Once the butter has been incorporated and the dough has passed the windowpane test, it's time to let it rest. It's been through a lot. Resting is important to give the yeast time to feed and the dough time to grow.

Shape the dough into a ball by tucking all the ends under and place it in a lightly greased bowl. Cover the mouth of the bowl and let it rise for about an hour at room temperature (around 72°F).

Kitchen temperature makes a big difference in how quickly your brioche rises. If your kitchen is cold (below 70°F), the butter will be more solid and the dough will rise slowly. If your kitchen is warm (above 75°F), the butter will be very warm and the dough will rise quickly.

It's more important that the dough looks and feels right than that a certain amount of time has passed. If the dough is ready a little before an hour or a little after an hour or if the dough needs another 30 minutes to rise, that's just fine.

If the dough completely deflates when you press a finger in, that means it overproofed. Don't panic. Brioche is incredibly resilient. Gently press all the air out, shape it back into a ball, cover it, and let it rest 10-15 more minutes. Then move on to the shaping step.

Shaping A Brioche Loaf

There are a lot of different ways you can shape a brioche loaf. You can tuck in the edges and roll it into a log like in my chocolate chip brioche loaf. You could also braid it following the instructions in my homemade challah bread recipe and bake it in or out of a loaf pan, or roll and twist it up with all kinds of fillings like I did in my apples and honey babka.

But when I'm making a simple and straightforward loaf of brioche dough that I plan to use for for sandwiches, grilled cheese, etc., I like to use this shaping method which gives it a rounded, heart-shaped top, kind of like sweetheart neckline.

While this shaping method is primarily an aesthetic choice, it's also practical. I've found that dividing and shaping the dough in smaller sections helps reduce air bubbles and gives the crumb inside the loaf a more even texture when it bakes.

Gently deflate the dough to press any giant air bubbles out of it, then turn it out onto a clean counter or work surface to shape.

If the dough is very sticky because its warm in your kitchen and the butter is starting melting, you're better off popping the dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes before continuing rather than trying to flour the counter to prevent sticking.

A little bit of sticking is good! A lot of sticking is not.

The Second Brioche Rise

Arrange the eight dough balls in four rows of two (or two rows of four, depending on how you're looking at your loaf pan) in a greased and lined loaf pan.

Sometimes brioche will develop air bubbles in the outer layer of dough — I usually pop these before I egg wash the dough.

The egg wash seals them shut so you get a nice shiny top on your brioche loaf. It's really up to you if you want to keep them or pop them.

Baking Brioche

Towards the end of the dough rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Beat an egg with 1 teaspoon milk or water and a pinch of salt in a small bowl to make an egg wash. Brush the top of the loaf with a thin layer of egg wash.

If you want to add any toppings to your brioche dough like sesame seeds, Swedish pearl sugar, everything bagel seasoning, etc. now is the time to do so.

Bake this single loaf of brioche bread at 350°F for 30-35 minutes or to an internal temperature of 200°F.

The brioche bread will be quite a dark golden brown on top when it's done. If you're worried about it getting too dark, you can tent it with foil during the final 10-15 minutes of baking. 

Let it cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes, then remove to a rack to finish cooling completely. 

Important: Brioche and Temperature

In baking, "room temperature" is generally somewhere around 70-75°F.

Depending on the temperature of your kitchen, and the temperature of your milk and egg, your dough may rise faster or slower, and your dough may reach windowpane stage faster or slower.

Due to the extra weight of the butter on the gluten network, don't worry if your dough needs up to an extra hour of time to rise, especially if your kitchen is cold.

In the case of brioche dough, which has a lot of butter in it, warmer temperatures (even just the warmth from your hands) makes the dough sticker and harder to handle. Dust the dough lightly with flour as needed to prevent sticking. Or pop the dough in the fridge for 10-15 minutes to help the butter firm up before shaping.

Just because your dough isn’t ready at the time estimates given in the recipe, that doesn’t mean it's not working — there might be other temperature factors affecting how quickly or slowly it gets there!

Getting the dough to reach the right stages and look and feel right is more important than nailing the timing.

Cold Proofing Brioche Dough

You can give this brioche dough a long slow rise in the fridge before or after shaping it (or both!). A long cold rise gives the dough more time to develop its flavor and texture.

Brioche dough is incredibly resilient. The dough will be fine in the fridge for up to 48 hours! Make sure it's in a bowl or container that gives it plenty of room to expand.

If refrigerating the brioche after shaping it, give it at least an hour to sit at room temperature before baking. If your brioche dough is too cold when you bake it, it may need a longer baking time.

Gluten and butter firm up in the fridge, so if you're planning on rolling the brioche dough out to make something like babka or cinnamon buns, a cold rise will make the dough much easier to handle as well.

Substituting Active Dry Yeast for Instant Yeast

Active Dry and Instant yeast are both saccharomyces cerevisiae, a single-celled living organism used for leavening bread and doughs.

The only difference between the two types of yeast is that Active Dry yeast granules have a little coating around them which needs to be dissolved to reveal the yeast inside.

Because of this extra little shell around the Active Dry yeast granules taking up space and weight, you'll need to use slightly more Active Dry yeast to get the same effect as using Instant yeast.

To calculate how much Active Dry yeast to use, increase the amount of Instant yeast by 25%. So for this brioche recipe, you'd be using 7.5 grams of active dry yeast (you can round down to 7 grams).

Equipment Notes — Use a Stand Mixer!

You need a stand mixer with a dough hook to make this recipe. You cannot make brioche bread with a hand mixer. And it's very hard to make by hand. I don't recommend it.

If you have a KitchenAid mixer with the tilt head and the bowl that screws in at the base, the motor may struggle with this dough — keep a close eye on it. You may need to hold the bowl in place to make sure it doesn’t unscrew during the kneading process.

If you have a bowl-lift model, still keep an eye on it the whole time it's mixing and kneading. You don't want the mixer to walk itself off the counter!

If your mixer’s motor feels like it’s overheating, you can pause for 5 minutes and then resume mixing.

Practical Tips & Recipe Notes

• If you don't reach a perfect windowpane before adding the butter and it's been at least 10 minutes of kneading that's okay — you can go ahead and start adding butter. It won't be a technically perfect brioche, but it will still be delicious!
• If the butter chunks are struggling to incorporate, lightly dust in ¼ teaspoon of flour — it will help the butter cling to the dough. Resist adding more flour unless absolutely needed!
• Some of my recipe testers said their dough doubled in size in an hour, others said it took closer to two hours. Be patient!

Recipe FAQ

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