BHA & BHT Free Bread Machine Brioche
Rich, buttery, and impossibly tender, this brioche is the kind of bread that makes you want to clear your whole afternoon just to slice into it. Every ingredient here is straightforward and clean — whole milk, eggs, real butter, bread flour, sugar, salt, and yeast — with zero preservatives or synthetic additives in sight. That matters more than it might seem, because many store-bought enriched breads and even some packaged brioche rely on BHA or BHT to extend shelf life, making them a minefield if you're avoiding those additives. Making it yourself puts you in complete control of what goes into every golden, pillowy bite. The bread machine handles the heavy lifting of kneading and the first rise, which is genuinely the trickiest part of brioche — getting all that butter fully incorporated into the dough without overworking it. You finish by shaping the dough into three smooth balls, letting them proof until they crown beautifully above the pan, then baking until deep chestnut brown and perfectly set inside. The result is a loaf with a glossy crust, a soft and feathery crumb, and that unmistakable richness that only real butter can deliver.
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Learn more →Ingredients
12 servings
For the dough
- ¼ cup whole milk, warmed to 95–100°f (35–38°c)
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 3 cups bread flour
- 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast (1 standard packet)
- 10 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes, softened
For the egg wash
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tbsp whole milk
Instructions
- 1
Add the ingredients to the bread machine pan in the order your machine's manual specifies (typically liquids first, then dry ingredients, with yeast last and kept away from the salt). Add the warmed milk, then the 3 eggs, sugar, and salt. Add the bread flour on top, then make a small well in the center of the flour and add the yeast.
- 2
Select the Dough cycle on your bread machine and start it. Once the machine has been kneading for about 5 minutes and a shaggy dough has formed, begin adding the softened butter cubes a few at a time through the lid opening, waiting about 30 seconds between additions. The dough will look rough and greasy at first — continue until all the butter is incorporated and the dough is smooth, supple, and pulls away cleanly from the sides of the pan, about 10–12 minutes into the knead cycle.
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