Cinnamon Swirl Brioche: Bread of the Week 46

A few weeks ago I was at brunch with Kathleen when we discovered cinnamon swirl brioche from Gateway Market. It's rich and delicious, with just a touch of sweetness. It's so good that when we returned for brunch two weeks later we both bought a loaf.

I feel silly buying bread. When you make at least one loaf a week buying bread seems a little ridiculous. I've made brioche before. I've made cinnamon swirl bread before. I decided to try my hand at making cinnamon swirl brioche.

I used the cinnamon swirl mix from the Bread Baker's Apprentice. I used the brioche recipe from Baking Illustrated. It looked great going into the oven.

But about 40 minutes into baking the loaf the Hawkeyes decided to make me yell and get sucked into the game, so I burnt the loaf a bit. The inside was still tender and delicious. The crust was worthless. Even with the burnt crust I was able to determine that using the Poor Man's Brioche recipe from the BBA will be my choice next time. The recipe I used was just a tad too rich for the cinnamon swirl.

I knew I wouldn't eat a loaf of well done cinnamon swirl brioche, so I decided to go crazy and make a up a recipe. I created this baked French toast by cubing the bread and removing the most burnt bits. I put the cubes in a buttered bread pan. I mixed up 3 eggs, 1 1/4 c milk, a splash of vanilla, and about 1T of the cinnamon sugar blend leftover from baking the bread. I chilled the loaf in the fridge over night and baked it this morning at 350 for an hour.

Topped with a little bit of maple syrup this French toast bake tasted like a cross between bread pudding and monkey bread. It is the best use of a burnt loaf I've ever found.