Filled Strawberry Brioche

Pronounced as' bree-oshh', this is a kind of French bread. I havent actually eaten a brioche before and havent heard of it too..until i came across this in one of my baking books, "Cakes by Racheal Lane and Carla Bardi'. First glance at the picture, it looks like a kind of pie to me , probably of its shape. You see, some information i got from the net..the traditional brioche is baked in a deep, round fluted mould and is usually made by placing another small dough on top of the big dough. It is believed that it originated from Normandy but some argued that it could be Romania. Anyway, i wanted to bake it like the traditional shape and also the one shown in the book, so i purposely went and look for this mould. I think the lady in the shop doesnt know what mould i was talking about , then i showed her the picture, yeah i brought along my book..and she recommended me a jelly mould which looks quite similar and so i bought it. It took about a total of 2.5 hours to proof as it needs to go thru 3 times proofing. I was quite excited while waiting it to be baked cos i wanted to know how's the taste like. The result..buttery, airy and soft bread and a bit savoury which i like too. Still good the next day.

the 'brioche lookalike' mould, 17cm in diameter

Ingredients:

7gm instant yeast (original recipe: 2 (1/4oz or 7gm) packages active dry yeast or 1oz compressed fresh yeast)
2 tablespoons water
2 large eggs
225gm bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
60gm butter ( melted )

Method:

1. Grease the brioche mould or baking pan
2. Combine the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl.  Add water and rub in the butter. Knead until smooth dough is formed.
3. Cover with cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour
4. Break off a small ball of dough. Set aside. Lightly knead the larger dough and transfer to the baking mould or pan, let it rise again until doubled in bulk , about 40 mins.
5. Place the smaller ball of dough on top of the larger dough , cover and let rise just above the top of the mould, about 40 mins.
6. Preheat oven at 200C and bake for 15-20 mins or until well risen or golden brown.

Note:
I only used 7gm instant yeast considering it was really a hot day when i was doing this..and 14gms to me seems a lot..but it did rise up well.
When I placed the smaller ball of dough on top of the larger dough ( step 5 ) , the larger dough sank a bit becos of the weight but that doesnt matter.
I didnt put the whole of the larger dough into that mould cos that's the much for the mould, i put about 2/3 of the large dough into that mould and the rest i just shape into balls.
For decoration purpose, i've cut the smaller dough out and filled up with whipped cream and strawberries and placed the smaller dough back on top of the strawberries.