Lavender Brioche French Toast

We’re going to take the scenic route to breakfast.  

Don’t worry, I do this often in life… usually it’s because I’m stubborn and I don’t like to use the navigation app on my phone.  

By way of breakfast, we’re taking the scenic route by first… making a casual loaf of really lovely lavender brioche bread. 

Ok yea. It’s a scenic detour that requires heart and soul, time and self-patience.  But trust! I wouldn’t get you into something you can’t handle.  I’m not asking you to wake up first thing on Sunday morning, slap on the mascara and get cooking.  I have a better plan.  If you’re anything like me… and listen, I know you are… you spend at least a portion of your Saturday night bra-less and pitzing around in the kitchen.  Maybe Law & Order SVU reruns are on.  Maybe you’re just living your truest truth.  Point is… in that sacred time, you could be making a beautiful loaf of this lavender brioche for the next morning’s breakfast.  

I’m not trying to intrude.   I just believe in you and bread and bra-less cooking.  

This recipe is a combination of recipes two recipes from Over Easy.  The Buttered Pecan French Toast + Lavender Brioche Bread – the buttered pecans + a few slices of bacon and a bra.  That’s the math if you really want to get into specifics.  

We’ll start by making the bread which… well, I know it might feel like a deeply laborious thing to do just to end up with french toast on your plate, but we’re in this together.

And if you happen to feel like it’s not worth it and want to take the fast track to french toast, I certainly wouldn’t be mad at you for buying brioche.  I just want you to breakfast well.  It’s friendship care.  

If you’re making bread… it starts with flour in a bowl.  You’ve done that before.  It’s not so bad. 

Brioche is a beautifully forgiving dough thanks to a good amount of fat.  

Fat is notorious for making yeasted doughs pliable, happy, and easy to work with. 

In a small saucepan we’ll melt butter and add milk.  

To the milky butter we’ll also add honey for sweetness… 

and dried culinary lavender to create a deeply fragrant and flavorful dough. 

The mixture is heated to warm, just enough to dissolve the honey and bloom the lavender. 

Yeast!  I used active dry yeast and added it to the warm butter / milk / honey mish-mash. 

Remember a moment ago when I said that fat makes a brioche batter easy to work with!  Add eggs to the list.  Two eggs in the dough will make it velvet soft!  It’s really one of my favorite doughs. 

In this mixer I have our milky yeasty butter mixture + two eggs and now that flour we so tenderly placed in a bowl earlier. 

Salt too!  Don’t forget the balance! 

Worked into a shaggy dough. 

The dough was feeling a bit sticky to me so I added the remaining flour and worked the dough into a mostly smooth and soft dough. 

The best part is working the dough with your hands into a smooth round.  

If you want to kiss it, that makes sense to me too. 

Into a greased bowl to rest, covered, until doubled in size… nice and fluffy.  

Once the dough is risen.

Are you still with me?

Flop it onto a lightly floured surface and knead into a mostly deflated round.  

Feel free to use less flour that I show here.  When kneading the dough into ropes, the less flour the better… you’ll appreciate a little stick and counter resistance. 

Divide the dough ball into three mostly-equal pieces.  

Roll each into ropes.  

This is where you’ll want less flour and more stick to your counter space.  

I braid my brioche from the middle, out- on each end. 

Fold and tuck.

I would encourage you to braid this bread in what ever way feels comfortable and correct to you.

And then I wonder if one of you could come over and teach me how to french braid hair… that’s a life skill that passed me by.  

The braided loaf if left to rest and rise for half an hour while the oven preheats.  The loaf is brushed with egg wash and baked up to golden brown.  

I left the baked loaf to rest, uncovered, overnight to dry out juuust a bit.  I find that a dry bread makes for a good french toast, soaking up all of the custard.  

For the French Toast we’ll need: eggs, whole milk, cream, butter and cinnamon+ sugar.  

Eggs are whisked well with whole milk and heavy cream.  

Cinnamon and granulated sugar is mixed together before adding it to our eggy custard. 

And the whole mixture is whisked together with vanilla extract. 

I like thick slices of brioche with a good soak in custard.  About 15 seconds per side, maybe a few seconds longer. 

Cooked to golden brown and topped with pure maple syrup.  

Well earned, well deserved.  Ask someone else to pour the mimosas. You’re a damn goddess.