Cranberry Brioche Swirl

The cranberry brioche swirl is a delightful twist on the classic brioche bread, adding the tart and tangy flavor of cranberries to the rich and buttery dough. This recipe offers a perfect balance of sweet and tart flavors, making it an ideal choice for breakfast, brunch, or a delicious snack.

To create this delectable treat, you start with a basic brioche dough, which typically consists of flour, yeast, sugar, salt, eggs, and butter. The dough is enriched with eggs and butter, giving it a tender crumb and a buttery taste that pairs beautifully with the tartness of the cranberries.

The dough taste and texture are similar to panettone (the best recipe is here), but the proportions and technique are slightly different. It’s also important not to overwhelm the dough with flour, and to knead it patiently to the desired consistency. But this recipe has a little more flour relatively to the liquid, so we don’t need to knead for as long, and we don’t have any requirements for flour here, you can get by with ordinary all-purpose flour.

As an experiment, I made this dough without using any equipment other than a scraper. The process of kneading the dough took about 20 minutes until the desired consistency was obtained – a smooth, soft, elastic dough that does not stick to hands and surfaces.

If you don’t feel confident with yeast dough, I recommend you firstly read my article Why Yeast Dough Not Rising.

Cranberries for brioche swirls need to be soaked in advance: 1–2 days before preparing the pastries, pour any aromatic alcohol (rum, brandy) or, for example, orange juice over the dried fruits. Before cooking, drain them and pat them dry with paper towels to get rid of the remaining liquid.

The given amount of products makes 2 big swirls weighing 400-450 g each or 3 smaller swirls weighing about 300 g each.

Ingredients:

Moist brioche dough

110 g of milk
100 g of sugar
24 g of live yeast (or 8 g of dry active yeast)
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
1 zest of 1/2 orange
1 tsp vanilla extract (I recommend this one)
1 tsp amaretto liqueur (optional)
1 tsp of turmeric (optional)
40 g of melted butter
350 g of all-purpose flour

Filling for brioche

100 g soft butter
100 g soaked cranberries (without liquid)
Handful of almond flakes

Milk for greasing
Powdered sugar for decorating

Instructions:

1. Mix the milk, half of sugar and yeast, set aside.

2. Melt and cool the butter.

3. Mix all the other ingredients for the dough + the remaining sugar, pour in the cooled butter and the milk+yeast mixture, and knead the dough. DO NOT add extra flour, except as indicated in the ingredients list! Knead until the dough does not come away from the table or from the walls of the bowl (if kneading in a planetary mixer).

4. Grease a bowl with vegetable oil, place the dough in it, cover and put in a warm place for 2 hours. During this time, the dough should double in size.

5. Punch down the dough and roll out into a rectangle about 25×45 cm, grease with soft butter, sprinkle with soaked dried fruit and almond flakes.

6. Roll the dough on the long side of the rectangle. Cut the roll across into 2 or 3 pieces (into 2 or 3 swirls, accordingly). You will get 2-3 rolls about 15-20 cm long.

7. Cut each roll in half lengthwise, leaving 4-5 cm to the end. Open the halves and gently twist one half around itself, then the other half around the first, carefully hiding the tails.

8. Put the swirls in the molds and put them in a warm place for 1-2 hours to proof.

9. Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Carefully brush the tops of the swirls with milk. Bake the cakes for 35-50 minutes, depending on the size. Check doneness with a wooden skewer.

10. Remove the brioche swirls from the oven and cool at room temperature. Decorate with powdered sugar.

Store brioche at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Enjoy your meal!

What do you think about this recipe? Did you like it? I am happy to share my experience with you and waiting for your feedback!