Brioche

Yes.

Ingredients

• 2tbsp honey
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1c whole milk
  
• 4tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• about 4.5c flour, plus or minus.
  
• 2tbsp lavender
  
• Chocolate chips
  
• Glaze:
  
  
  
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 1tbsp milk
    
  • 1tbsp sugar
    
  
  

Mix together the dough ingredients (including the lavender) but exclude the chocolate chips. When it's starting to come together, turn it out onto a WELL floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. Put it back into a bowl and toss together with some olive oil. Cover and set in a warm, humid place to rise (a microwave with a cup of boiling water makes a great rising chamber). Rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Take out the dough and punch down. Divide into twelfths (I cut it in half twice to get fourths, and then divided each of those fourths in three to get twelfths). For each ball of dough, press your thumbs into one side and pull taught the other side (so you get a nice rounded surface), folding the edges into the center. Once one side is nice and taught, take a few chocolate chips (8-12) and put them together on the non-taught side. Pull the dough from the edges of the disc and pinch over the chocolate. The idea is basically to have a nice round ball enclosing a pouch of chocolate chips. The bottom of the dough (the non-taught side) doesn't need to look pretty.

Do this with each ball of dough and set on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel to rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 while you wait. Also, mix together all the glaze ingredients.

When the final rise is done, brush each bun with the glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden brown on top.

Thoughts: Claire was unsure about the olive oil, but I really liked the interesting flavor it imparted. Maybe - MAYBE next time we'll use a neutral oil. The chocolate we used was Guittard, and it was pretty great. Very vanilla-y, which complemented the aromatic qualities of the lavender and olive oil. The original recipe used only 1tsp of yeast and had an initial rise of 12-20 hours. I'll be honest - I think I like my way better. Anyway, these were JUST delicious. They don't require anything else. Just eat them plain. As a note: the recipe says to reheat them you should bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Sounds kind of excessive to me, but we might find out.

Disaster Index: 1/10