Brioche Lab217 recipes

Brioche Lab

Brioche: what 217 recipes agree on

The richest bread dough: butter, eggs and sugar per 100 g of flour.

217 recipes from 81 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical loaf, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.

Recipes

217

from 81 sites

Typical flour

400 g

about 3 1/4 cups

Oven

350°F

175°C · median of 182

Bake time

30 min

most 20 to 35 min

The typical loaf of brioche

The median of all 217 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 400 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.

Typical brioche recipe in grams, with the range most recipes use
IngredientGrams
FlourThe scale for everything else400 gabout 3 1/4 cups
ButterMost recipes use 100 to 195 g145 gabout 2/3 cup
EggMost recipes use 105 to 230 g160 gabout 3 large eggs
SugarMost recipes use 40 to 75 g55 gabout 1/4 cup
Milk or waterMost recipes use 49 to 160 g100 gabout 1/2 cup
SaltMost recipes use 1 to 8 g6 g
YeastMost recipes use 4 to 8 g6 g

Bake350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g, a large egg 50 g.

Every recipe, ingredient by ingredient

Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.

  1. Butter

    median 36% · most 24 to 49%

    Brioche runs from about 25% butter for a bread-like loaf to 70% or more for a cake-like one; the butter goes in after the gluten has formed.

    0%50%100%150%
    Each dot is up to 3 recipes.

    range 12 to 110%

  2. Egg

    median 40% · most 26 to 57%

    Eggs replace most of the water, which gives the yellow, tender, shreddable crumb.

    0%25%50%75%100%
    Each dot is up to 4 recipes.

    range 15 to 86%

  3. Sugar

    median 14% · most 10 to 19%

    Sugar adds sweetness and a deep brown crust; too much slows the yeast.

    0%20%40%60%
    Each dot is up to 4 recipes.

    range 4.2 to 48%

  4. Milk or water

    median 25% · most 12 to 40%

    A little milk or water on top of the eggs; some recipes use none.

    0%20%40%60%
    Each dot is up to 4 recipes.

    range 0 to 52% · 12% use none

  5. Salt

    median 1.4% · most 0.2 to 2%

    Around 2%.

    0%1%2%3%4%
    Each dot is up to 6 recipes.

    range 0 to 3.3% · 11% use none

  6. Yeast

    median 1.4% · most 1 to 1.9%

    Enriched doughs rise slowly, so brioche carries more yeast than lean bread, often with an overnight chill.

    0%2%4%6%
    Each dot is up to 4 recipes.

    range 0 to 5% · 3% use none

Where recipes disagree

Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.

  • Salt. The middle half of recipes use 0.2 to 2% of the flour weight in salt, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 10.0 times as much as one at the 25th.
  • Milk or water. The middle half of recipes use 12 to 40% of the flour weight in milk or water, so a recipe at the 75th percentile has 3.2 times as much as one at the 25th.

Recipes agree most on sugar and yeast: sugar 10 to 19%, yeast 1 to 1.9% for the middle half.

Around the world

217 of the recipes come in 7 languages with enough of each to compare: French 64, English 50, Italian 34, German 33, Dutch 20, Portuguese 8, Spanish 8.

  • Italian recipes use 27% less butter than English ones (29% against 41% of the flour weight), 32% less egg (34% against 50%) and 58% more sugar (19% against 12%).
  • 25% of Portuguese recipes use no salt, against 0% of English recipes.
Every language, ingredient by ingredient →

The most-reviewed recipes

48 brioche recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 169, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:

On no ingredient do the most-reviewed recipes differ from the rest by more than chance would explain.

50+ ratings (48)the rest (169)middle half of all

  • Butterthe most-reviewed recipes 30% vs the rest 38%

  • Eggthe most-reviewed recipes 38% vs the rest 43%

  • Sugarthe most-reviewed recipes 16% vs the rest 13%

  • Milk or waterthe most-reviewed recipes 30% vs the rest 24%

  • Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 1.2% vs the rest 1.5%

  • Yeastthe most-reviewed recipes 1.3% vs the rest 1.4%

Most reviewed

  1. Butter Brioche · gutekueche.at · German4.5 from 1,825 ratings
  2. Brioche Vendéenne au thermomix · cookomix.com · French4.9 from 1,199 ratings
  3. Brioche du boulanger au thermomix · cookomix.com · French4.9 from 1,122 ratings
  4. Briochekipferl · gutekueche.at · German4.5 from 1,000 ratings
  5. Briocheteig · gutekueche.at · German4.4 from 837 ratings

Oven temperature and time

182 of 217 recipes state an oven temperature, and 60% of those bake at 350°F (175°C). The middle half bake at 350 to 375°F. The other 35 do not say.

  • 350°F111 recipes
  • 375°F27 recipes
  • 400°F21 recipes
  • 325°F16 recipes
  • 425°F4 recipes
  • 475°F2 recipes

197 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 30 minutes and the middle half bake 20 to 35 minutes.

Temperature and time together

The single most common pairing is 350°F for 20 to 30 minutes, with 35 of the 172 recipes that state both.

Rows: oven °F (°C in gray), every 25°F. Columns: minutes, 10 a column, from the start of each; the middle of a stated range counts. Darker: more recipes, up to 35 in one cell. Outlined: the median, 350°F for 30 minutes. 172 recipes state both. The edge rows and columns also hold the few recipes beyond them.

Recipes to start with

Closest to the typical loaf

Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.

Most butter

Least butter

All 217 brioche recipes →

Go deeper

Top sources

  • 11cookomix.com
  • 10kuechengoetter.de
  • 10ricettedalmondo.it
  • 9chefsimon.com
  • 9marmiton.org
  • 8chefnini.com
  • 8cucchiaio.it
  • 7gutekueche.at
  • 6chainbaker.com
  • 6cuisineaz.com
  • 5culy.nl
  • 5kingarthurbaking.com

In 7 languages: French 64, English 50, Italian 34, German 33, Dutch 20, Portuguese 8, Spanish 8. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 81 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.

How the numbers are made

Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.

91% of the 2,053 ingredient lines got a weight. 57% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.

A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 386 were left out: 242 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (egg 75, butter 70, sugar 39, milk or water 30, yeast 24, salt 4), 73 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 48 with a title that names a different dish, 13 a listing page, not a recipe page, 7 too many lines without an amount, 2 duplicates of other pages, and 1 with an ingredient in amounts that could not be weighed.

Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.