Nutella Brioche Flower Bread

28th April, 2015

After seeing this amazing flower shaped bread all over the internet, I could not resist from baking it. When I was deciding the bakes for the mega marathon, I had marked this flower bread down. I wanted to make it with a different filling instead of the nutella. Last weekend, we went to visit our cousins in Dallas and when I was thinking of what to make for the kids, this nutella flower bread came to my mind. That is when I decided to stick to the nutella filling as everyone will like chocolate. We had the bread after dinner for dessert and everyone liked it. The bread did not even need any reheating as the bread remained very soft.

I used enriched dough for the bread instead of the regular bread dough. The dough was such a pleasure to work with and shaping was lot of fun. This is my first slightly intricate shaped bread and it was quite easy to work with. I used this video for reference to shape the bread.

Preparation time – 40 minutes plus 3 hours of inactive time
Cooking time – 20 – 25 minutes
Difficulty level – medium

Ingredients – Makes 1 large flower shaped bread

• Bread flour – 4 cups (can be substituted with All purpose flour)
• Instant yeast – 1 ½ tsp
• Sugar – 2 tbsp
• Salt – ½ tsp
• Eggs – 2 large
• Butter – 4 tbsp (melted)
• Lukewarm milk – 200 ml plus few tbsp to brush the top of the dough
• Nutella spread – 5 – 6 tbsp (more or less depending on how thick you spread)

Procedure –

To make the dough –

• Melt the butter and add it to the warm milk. Mix well. Break the eggs and whisk it well.
• In the mixer bowl, add the flour, sugar, yeast and salt and mix. Add the eggs and start the mixer.

• Now add the milk/butter mixture and run the mixer at low speed to combine. It should form sticky dough.
• Now turn the mixer on medium and knead the dough for 8-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
• Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with plastic. Let it rise in a warm draft free place for about 1 – 1 ½ hours or until double in volume.

• Once the dough has risen, place it on the work board and punch it down gently. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts.

• Warm the nutella slightly so that it is easy to spread. I warmed it in the microwave for about 15 seconds.
• Working with one part at a time, roll the dough to roughly a 10 inches circle. I used a dinner plate as measurement guide and rolled the dough slightly larger than that. Later I used that plate to mark my circle and shape the dough.
• Take a sheet of parchment and insert it under the rolled dough and transfer the dough onto it. I placed the rolled dough along with the parchment on a large cutting board and worked with it. Later on it was easy to slide the shaped bread to the baking tray with the parchment.
• Spread a thin even layer of the nutella spread on the rolled out dough. I made an indentation on the rolled dough with the plate and spread the nutella till the marking. This way the whole bread had the spread evenly distributed.
• Now roll the second dough and place it on the first layer (that has the spread). Press gently and again mark with the plate. Spread the nutella on the second layer as well.
• Repeat the same with the third piece of dough. Then roll out the last piece of dough and place it on top. This will be our top layer and will not have any spread on it.

• Use the plate as an aid and cut out all the extra dough. This will leave us with a clean round layered dough to make the flower shape.

• Place a small glass in the center of the dough. My glass was about 2 ½ inches wide. This will remain in the center until we finish shaping the bread.
• Starting from the edge of the glass cut the dough into quarters using a sharp knife. There will be 4 parts now.
• Cut each quarter into half. Now we have 8 parts.
• Cut each part into half again. This will bring it to 16 parts.
• Pick two adjacent piece of cut out strip and roll it in opposite side twice. Both the sides should be rolled outwards. Refer to the pictures.
• Repeat the same with the rest of the pieces. We will have 8 large petals now.
• Pinch the edges of the petal to make it into a flower shape.

• Transfer the shaped dough to a baking tray. Insert the tray gently under the parchment and slide the whole bread onto the sheet.

• Cover with a kitchen cloth and let it proof for about 45 minutes until it is puffy.

• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Once the dough has proofed for the second time, brush it with milk.
• Bake for about 20 – 25 minutes or until the bread is golden brown on top.

• Cool on a rack and then serve!

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