Nitrate & Nitrite 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 clean and straightforward — whole milk, eggs, real butter, flour, sugar, salt, and yeast — with absolutely nothing cured, preserved, or processed lurking in the mix. That matters more than it might seem, since many store-bought enriched breads and even some packaged yeasts can contain additives you'd rather avoid. Here, the bread machine does the heavy lifting on the notoriously tricky butter-incorporation step, slowly working those softened cubes into the dough until it becomes smooth, glossy, and completely transformed. The result is a three-ball loaf with a deep chestnut crust and a pillowy, pull-apart crumb that tastes like something from a proper French bakery. A final egg wash gives it that gorgeous shine without any shortcuts or mystery ingredients. Whether you're toasting thick slices for breakfast or using it as the base for the most indulgent sandwich of your life, this loaf delivers every single time.
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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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