I am practicing my brioche making skills.

Last weekend a handsome young man took me to get chocolate brioche at the farmers market. It was glorious. Why we only got one I do not know.

So now my mission is to perfect the brioche.

Brioche, is a sweet (or savoury) french bread delight. It has a higher sugar, butter and egg content than normal bread, giving it a light and soft crumb. It is commonly filled with delectable fillings such as chocolate ganache and fruit curds. You can also make savoury brioche that are filled with a variety of treats.

My first stop on the brioche journey has to be chocolate. While I was purchasing my chocolate wares from the supermarket, the two-for-$7 special gave me the idea to throw some hazelnut chocolate in it too. As I sit here writing this, it disturbs me greatly knowing that only about 100g of the 500g purchased now remains. Not that I ate it, it just all went into this!

ALL the chocolate.

Not that that is a bad thing at all.

As I look at the final product sitting on the bench it makes me think that really these are just cinnamon scrolls in a different outfit. Cinnamon scrolls that are 100x worse for you.

After being greedy and consuming the prettiest (and largest) one of these I now regret not making these in a regular muffin pan. A Texan pan is just TOO big. Seriously I want to die right now. This food baby rivals the baby of two (or three) weeks ago that had myself and three other grown men collapsed on the floor. So one of these is equivalent to minestrone, ratatouille, deep dish pizza, cheese and custard squares. Pretty sure the laws of physics just got smashed apart there.

So for those of you brave enough to face the Texan, go right ahead. This recipe will make six monstrous babies. For those of you who want to live to tell the tale (because eating half is never an option!) use a regular muffin pan. I would say this would make 12 smaller brioche.

I adapted this recipe from the

Treats from Little and Friday

book by Kim Evans. This is around half of the original recipe and I think that makes more than enough. Worst case scenario you have too many and you turn them into chocolate brioche bread and butter pudding the next day . . .

Shall we skip to it?

Chocolate and Hazelnut Brioche Scrolls

Makes 6 large or 12 regular scrolls

225ml milk

2 teaspoons dried yeast (if using instant yeast just skip the activation step)

3 1/4 cups plain flour

1/3 cup castor sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

70g butter, softened, cut into very small cubes

2 small eggs

1/2 cup cream

250g good quality chocolate (a combination of dark and hazelnut if you wish)

100g hazelnut chocolate, chopped roughly

egg wash:

1 egg

1 tablespoon cream

To make the ganache that is spread in the middle just warm up 1/2 cup cream up in a saucepan and just as it begins to simmer, remove from the heat and place in 125g good quality dark chocolate and 125g hazelnut chocolate. I used the Whittakers variety. Leave the chocolate to sit in the hot cream for a minute before stirring until smooth with a spoon or a spatula. Pop this in the fridge until it sets into a spreadable consistency.

Mix together the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl (preferably a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and a dough hook attachment).

Warm the milk in a saucepan until luke warm. Sprinkle in the yeast. If using dry yeast leave the yeast to activate for 10 minutes before continuing. If using instant just move straight onto the next step.

Whisk the two small eggs into the milk and yeast mixture.

Pour the liquid into the dry mixture and stir (or mix using the paddle attachment) until it all just comes together and a sticky dough forms.

Remove the paddle attachment at this stage and replace with the dough hook.

Knead the dough (with the hook or your hands) for ten minutes or until a shiny, smooth and elastic dough forms.

At this stage you can start adding in the small cubes of butter. Add the butter one cube at a time and knead until it has been incorporated. Then add the next cube. Continue until all the butter has been added.

Place the dough ball in a greased bowl with a tea towel over the top. Leave in a warm place to prove, or double in size. I sat mine in front of my heater for two hours and this worked a treat.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees on bake.

On a floured board, roll out the dough until it is a 20x30cm rectangle.

Spread about 3/4 of the ganache mixture over the dough. Save the left over ganache for when you are home alone by yourself on a Saturday night and have no friends (or for bread and butter pudding the next day).

Sprinkle over the chocolate chunks.

Roll the dough along the longest edge so that you get a long sausage. Using a sharp knife, slice the sausage into 6 or 12 pieces depending on what pan you are going to use.