Chocolate Brioche Wreaths

These little darlings were made for our Russian neighbor, Katya, out of benevolent spite. Yes, that's a thing. Katya has a warm spirit with a boisterous personality and strong voice. She's absolutely hilarious and no one can escape her magnetism. A few weeks back, we were giving her a ride home from a local litter pick-up event and said we needed to hang out sometime. We had met very briefly and this was our first time to actually converse. She started joking about how Americans always agree to get together and then never follow up. Needless to say, it has left a rather insincere impression and she teased me as I promised to give her a call sometime.

I concluded that a phone call wasn't good enough.

This level of damage control required bribery.  Sweet, delicious bribery. Cookies and cupcakes are too common. I concluded that this bridge could only be patched with yeast because it requires time, patience, and commitment. Consider these Chocolate Brioche Wreaths my resume for Diplomatic Relations.

These wreaths are delightful and are best for a mature audience. They are not super sweet and the chocolate filling is akin to dark chocolate in flavor. I did not roll the bread rope super tight so they expanded more during the second rise. As a result, my wreaths were fluffy but did not yield the detailed, pretty layers as pictured in Hint of Vanilla. You can even leave the dough as a braid and skip the wreath (just make sure the ends are pinched soundly). The aesthetic is entirely up to you! 

I would like to note four important items: 1) the instructions has the base dough rest overnight in the fridge so take that into account in the planning. This is a time intensive recipe.

2) Make sure that during the second rise, when the wreaths are formed, to distribute the wreaths across two sheet pans. I put all eight on one sheet pan. During the rise, the dough rose so much that some of the wreaths made contact and I had to delicately separate them. No one wants to lose a risen bread, especially so close to the finish line.

3) The egg wash matters. For this dough in particular, it gives a beautiful browned finish. You can clearly see in the group bake photo below that the wreaths on the right had too little egg wash. Be generous and coat as evenly as possible. I added a light sprinkle of sugar crystals on top for a little more bling.

4) Some reviewers on Hint of Vanilla commented that they found the bread too salty. I will admit, I balked at 9 grams of fine sea salt. I used closer to 7 or 8 grams and didn't find the bread salty in the slightest. I think in cases where it was too salty, the bread may not have rise enough to disperse the salt.

The end result is a fantastic bread that was a real crowd pleaser. We kept a few to share with friends and they all loved the subtle flavor. Katya actually called it a croissant thanks to the flaky layers. Add a cup of coffee and wowza!  

The recipe for these Chocolate Brioche Wreaths can be be found on Hint of Vanilla and yields eight (8) hand-sized wreaths.