Brioche dough calculator
Hamelman's brioche: 50% butter and 50% eggs against the flour, chilled overnight.
Total hydration counts the water inside the eggs, milk and butter.
Brioche at the reference standard — Hamelman’s formula: eggs and butter each at 50% of the flour weight. This is the real patisserie article, and it depends on an overnight rest in the fridge.
How it works
The formula
Eggs 50%, butter 50%, sugar 12%, water just 9.6% (eggs are the liquid), salt 2.2% — and under half a percent of instant yeast, because the schedule is long. Bread cetera puts published brioches anywhere from 20% butter to 80% and more; the two recorded here sit at 43% and 50%.
Butter after gluten
Develop the dough fully before the butter goes in, then beat in the soft (not melted) butter gradually until silk-smooth. Then the crucial hour at room temperature, and into the fridge overnight — cold firms the butter so the dough can be shaped at all, and the slow ferment builds the aroma.
Shaping and baking
Work the cold dough quickly into loaves (~500 g for a 20 × 10 cm pan) or classic têtes, egg-wash, and proof about three hours at a gentle ~24 °C. Bake with a hot start around 190 °C, finishing lower — deep brown is correct for brioche; blond brioche is undercooked.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- Jeffrey Hamelman, “Bread” — brioche (read via Bread cetera) — The chosen brioche: eggs 50%, butter 50%, 12% sugar, overnight cold — butter across respected sources spans 43–50%.
- King Arthur — Brioche — Its brioche runs 43% butter on 2.7% instant yeast, also chilled several hours or overnight — the leaner end of the range.
FAQ
Why so little yeast?
Because the schedule is long and the dough is cold for most of it. King Arthur’s brioche runs 2.7%, six times this dose, on the same shape of schedule — an hour warm, several hours or overnight in the fridge, then a long proof. Both work; the smaller dose leaves more of the flavor to the ferment.
My butter leaked out during kneading?
It went in too warm or too fast. Butter should be plastic-soft, added in stages to an already-developed dough, in a cool bowl. If the dough turns greasy, chill it twenty minutes and resume.
What do I do with brioche besides slicing it?
Burger buns for rich sandwiches, têtes for breakfast, and stale brioche is the canonical base for pain perdu.
More from Buns & enriched breads
Bagel dough calculator
Reinhart's bagels: 56% hydration, malt, a night in the fridge and a boil before baking.
Hydration 56% · 16 × 100 g
Soft pretzel dough calculator
Bavarian Laugenbrezeln: a stiff 52% dough with malt and butter, dipped in lye.
Hydration 52% · 8 × 100 g
Kaiser roll dough calculator
Kaiser rolls with malt, egg and an overnight preferment, stamped and baked hot.
Hydration 69% · 6 × 125 g
Obwarzanek krakowski calculator
Kraków's PGI-protected ring: a stiff dough, parboiled at 90 °C, baked with poppy or sesame.
Hydration 43% · 4 × 145 g
Bun and enriched dough calculators12 calculators