“Let them eat brioche,” was what the “great princess” was supposed to have said when told that the peasants had no bread. It’s a callous remark, all right, except that the anecdote was written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau before Marie Antoinette even met Louis XVI.
Whatever the queen’s actual shortcomings, it wasn’t her fault that France experienced freakish weather in mid-1788, with some regions in drought while districts around Paris were pounded by severe hailstorm on July 13. What followed was a bitterly frigid winter. Spring thaw brought no relief, flooding fields and granaries, destroying what little remained of the food supply. Note that the French Revolution broke out in 1789.
Brioche did not cost Marie Antoinette her head. The attribution was only explicitly made some 50 years later, so the fact that it stuck in the Gallic imagination speaks of their lingering fascination with their last queen (the “crime” also sounds more legitimate than the typically racist one she was guilty of to most French — being Austrian). If you are Filipino, you need not think further back than Gloria Arroyo’s $20000 Le Cirque dinner to grasp how potent an image can be when accompanied by the proper bombast.
On the other hand, a history lesson is the last thing you need to appreciate brioche. Made with loads of eggs and butter, it may have come to embody the moral bankruptcy of Marie Antoinette’s epoch, but as a manifestation of refined bread-baking, it is nonpareil. With flaky crust and soft, cottony crumb, it is actually a pastry, perfect for French toast or sandwich. So, no, my first attempt, pictured above, did not quite make the grade. The recipe was from Ina Garten via MarketManila. Problem was, I did not know what to expect of the dough, so added more flour as it looked too wet. What can I say? I failed to do basic research. It was supposed to be that way. We had the bread with praline bacon, among others (FYI: The bread I used to make the French toast pictured here was from S&R).
My second attempt (recipe: Epicurious) I left in the oven too long (obvious ba?), but the crumb came out the sought-after ensaymada texture instead of dry sponge cake. Both recipes called for roughly two medium-size eggs plus their weight in butter per cup of flour (I used all-purpose). Right now we have a lot of bread to go through (the recipes note they should be good for a day or two, but up to a week in the refrigerator should be fine), so any further attempts will have to wait. I’m more inclined to revisit Ms. Garten’s less involved version.
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