Sticky Chocolate Buns/Brioche Bread

I decided to go ahead and make the chocolate sticky buns, and document making the brioche dough as well since I skipped that last time.

This brioche recipe starts with a sponge. It also has eggs in it so it’s similar to challah bread, and gets that nice, yellow-y, golden color.

The week that I made this, it was pretty warm and humid out, so the dough rose pretty quickly. 

Since brioche is a high-percentage butter bread, the dough is refrigerated for a while to firm up, or else the it becomes too loose and gooey.

It also grows quite a bit too. It was wrapped loosely in plastic wrap and placed in a zip-lock bag. As you can see, it fills out the bag, and also exploded out of its plastic wrapping.

Now to prepare the sticky filling. This is not the traditional caramel sauce. It’s got butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and heavy cream. Typically, when you make a traditional caramel sauce, the bubbles get smaller the closer they are to being done. But that didn’t seem to be the case for this. I think it might have to do with the addition of corn syrup.

This “sticky” topping set really quickly. I had to pour it evenly or spread it really fast or else it wouldn’t cover the whole pan.

Ganache is generally melted chocolate with the addition of some heavy cream which keeps it soft. This particular ganache had an addition of egg whites, which gave it a very gelatinous texture. It jiggled, kind of like pudding, and also made it a little shinier.

Like the sticky caramel buns, this was rolled up. It was too soft though, so I stuck it (covered) in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

I don’t know why, but it gives me great satisfaction to see these buns grow. At this size, I always doubt that they’ll fill out the pan.

But they rarely disappoint.

It looks burnt, but it’s not. It’s the chocolate.

Inverted.

Divided.

This goes well with some homemade vanilla bean ice cream. :d
Last time I wrote that the sticky caramel buns melt in your mouth because of the butter. (Remember? Butter is love?) But now I think I have to say they melt in your mouth because of the cinnamon sugar filling. I used the same brioche recipe, but this one came out more fluffy and less moist.

A note about chocolate:

The recipe called for fine semi-sweet chocolate, but I didn’t have any baking chocolate/chocolate squares (and didn’t feel like going out to buy them) so I thought I could just substitute semi-sweet chocolate chips (which I almost always have on hand). As I was melting the chocolate chips in a double-boiler, I noticed that they didn’t melt into smooth chocolate. Instead, they we kind of grainy. Turns out that the reason for this is because chocolate chips have less cocoa butter in them than chocolate meant for melting or baking. I mean, this makes total sense. When you add chocolate chips to something, they generally retain their shape even after baking in high heat.

Anyway, if you want to substitute chocolate squares with chocolate chips, just use 3 tablespoons of the chocolate chips per ounce. Add a tablespoon of sugar for every ounce if they are unsweetened. (Source).

Buttermilk Mango Ice Cream

This recipe is based off of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream ice cream base. I had some very ripe mangoes and buttermilk to use up, so I decided to make some ice cream! The great thing about this recipe base is that you don’t have to worry about curdling eggs.

Makes about 1 quart of ice cream

• 1 1/2 cups of mango (any kind will do, but I used Ataulfo)
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Combine the mango and sugar in a small/medium bowl to macerate for a few minutes
2. Transfer to a blender or food processor, add the buttermilk, and blend until smooth. Set aside.
3. In a medium stainless steel bowl (or bowl that can take heat), whisk together cream cheese and salt until smooth. Set aside.
4. In a cup, add two tablespoons of the milk to the cornstarch to make a slurry. Set aside
5. In a medium saucepan (~4 quarts), combine the remaining milk, heavy cream, sugar,  and light corn syrup. Bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes.
6. Remove from heat, and slowly stir in the cornstarch slurry. Return to heat and boil for about a minute while stirring continuously until thickened.
7. Add a little bit of the hot cream mixture to the cream cheese and whisk to temper. Add the rest of the hot cream and whisk until smooth and there are no lumps. Stir in the buttermilk mango mixture.
8. Cool the hot cream. *
9. Transfer the cooled ice cream base to containers and refrigerate until cold.
10. Pour the cold ice cream base into ice cream maker and churn until the consistency of soft-serve ice cream.
11. Quickly transfer the ice cream into freeze-safe container and cover/press down with a piece of parchment. Cover and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Scoop and enjoy!

*When I cool the ice cream base, I like to pour it into another stainless steel bowl that is fitted into a larger stainless steel bowl, which holds a ice water bath. Then I slowly spin the bowl holding the ice cream base while stirring to diffuse the heat. You can keep the ice water bath colder for longer by sprinkling salt (I find kosher salt works best and is most economical) onto the ice before adding water. Sometimes I’ll use cold-packs instead of ice. I also like to stick the stainless steel bowls and the container that the will be holding the finished ice cream in the freezer beforehand so everything is as cold as possible.

Jeni’s method, which works just as well, is to pour the ice cream base into a gallon freezer bag and place the bag into the ice water bath (careful not to get any excess water into the ice cream base). This maximizes the surface area of the ice cream base to be cooled (does that make sense?).