Chocolate swirl brioche with a pecan praline.

A nice change to a cake or a pastry, perfect with black coffee.

Brioche's use an enriched bread dough, containing has sugar, butter and eggs which alters the texture of the bread. I used a metal cupcake/muffin tin to make miniature loafs of bread, but alternatively you could use a large bread tin to make a brioche to share.

You will need:-

250g if strong bread flour

4tbsp of caster sugar

100g butter

2tsp of salt

3 eggs

1 sachet of fast action yeast

100g of chocolate spread

100g of pecans

Put the 100g of butter and 250g of flour into a large bowl and use your fingers to combine them into bread crumbs. Then add the 4tbsp of caster sugar, 2tsp of salt and yeast (with a tablespoon of tepid water) to the bowl with the flour and butter. Don't let the yeast and the salt touch as it will kill the yeast. Add the eggs and use your hands (or a bread mixture) to combine the ingredients into a soft dough. If the mixture is too wet, add a little more flour. Turn this onto a floured surface and knead for a couple minutes.

Grease the metal cupcake tin with butter and cut the dough into small pieces with a sharp knife. Place each piece into the dips in the tin and cover the tin with cling film. Put the dough in a warm place for 2 hours to prove and double in size.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees celsius. To make the praline, put some caster sugar and a splash of water into a sturdy pan and heat. Stir the sugar until it has dissolved in the water but do not stir again after this point. Keep on the heat until the mixture turns a light brown colour, then remove from the heat. Pour the pecans into the sugar and stir with a spatula until they are covered and the sugar solidifies. Leave this to cool for a minute and then put into a food processor until finely chopped.
Warning: when heating the sugar, do not touch, the sugar is extremely hot and will cause severe burns.

Mix the chopped pecans with chocolate spread into a small bowl.

When the brioche have proved, removed them from the oven. Using a knife, swirl the chocolate pecan mixture in the top of the brioche. Brush the top of the brioche with egg yolk and sprinkle with sugar.

Place in the oven for 5-10mins (or 20-25mins if you are making a large loaf), just until they have hardened and they sound hollow when tapped.

Tip: If you have left over chocolate praline mix, put into small balls and place in the fridge, this should make lovely praline chocolates!)

Enjoy! x