Sausage in Brioche

Brioche: The brioche base recipe used for the Sausage in Brioche is wonderful- delicious, full-flavored, and meets the goal of a fine crumb that doesn't pull away from fillings. It benefits from a full-flavored, sophisticated sausage.

This brioche is a very soft dough, and if you use a bread flour that is lower in protein, like Gold Medal's Better for Bread (which I love), you might want to leave out a tablespoon of water so the dough won't be too soft to work with. A higher-protein flour like King Arthur's bread flour will probably need the full amount of water.

It's worthwhile to note that the brioche will continue to rise vigorously after doubling and putting in the fridge, so I found it helpful to start the chilling when the dough had reached 1.5 times its original volume, instead of double (first rise).

Presentation: I chose a different presentation of this bread and filling partly because I needed a smaller diameter loaf to serve as an hors d'oeurve, and partly because I find the classic French presentation of a full loaf of bread with a single round sausage in the middle not to my liking.

For the presentation in the photo, I used 2/3 of the brioche recipe with all of the filling. I removed the sauage from its casing and pressed it flat in the pan, browned it on one side, then added the wine. I rolled the dough into two long rectangles, brushed them sparingly with egg white, layered the sausage on, then brushed it sparingly with egg white, then rolled tightly and tucked ends under. I did not use oil for rolling, as that would prevent the dough from adhereing to its filling. I rolled on lightly floured plastic wrap and then used the wrap to help roll the soft dough.

Large Recipe: This recipe (2/3 of the brioche rolled with all the filling) made two loaves, 19" long by 4.5" wide. Each loaf can be sliced into about 35 half-inch slices, so the recipe serves a large number as an appetizer. The dijon butter is lovely, but half the recipe is enough for both large loaves. Left over slices are sublime toasted and topped with a fried or poached egg.