Berne Brot: the recipe

Name: Berne Brot
Cook time: 33 min
Total time: 15 h 48 min
Yield: 4 pieces of 510 g
Ingredients: 1100 g Wheat flour; 495 g Milk; 40 g Egg yolks; 110 g Eggs; 22 g Salt; 165 g Butter; 61 g Sugar; 11 g Yeast

Berne Brot, originally from Bern, is a braided loaf that only resembles challah in appearance.

It's a rich dough that replaces water and oil with fresh milk and butter, plus the addition of eggs. The result is an extraordinarily soft, moist bread, protected by a thin crust and with a pale golden crumb that melts in your mouth.

This recipe is freely inspired by, or adapted from, a formula by Master Jeffrey Hamelman.

At a glance

Method: Straight dough, without autolyse
Mixing: Stand mixer

Number of pieces: 4
Weight per piece: 510 g
Dough weight: 2003 g
Total dough weight: 2040 g

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Ingredients

Quantities for 4 pieces of 510 g, kitchen at 24 °C

Wheat flour (0, W320)1100 g
Milk495 g
Egg yolks40 g (2 pcs)
Eggs110 g (2 pcs)
Salt22 g
Butter165 g
Sugar61 g
Yeast11 g

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Method

Weigh the ingredients and knead (25 min)
- Use the liquids at 15 °C rather than plain water
Mix all the ingredients in the mixer until very well developed.
End of mixing, start of bulk rise (at room temperature) (1 hour)
Put the dough in the fridge, covered (12 hours)
Degas the dough twice during the first 4 to 6 hours of refrigeration, by gently pressing out the gas.
Take it out of the fridge and divide/shape: weigh and form the pieces (5 min)
- Divide the dough into as many pieces as you like. Preshape into rounds or blunt cylinders and let rest on an unfloured surface, covered with plastic. Once relaxed enough to be elongated without tearing (10 to 15 minutes), roll out the strands and braid them.
- Once braided, cover the loaves with baker's linen and a sheet of plastic to keep a skin from forming. If using a proof box with humidity, keep it low: Too much humidity makes the strands merge together.
Start of proofing (at room temperature) (1 h 45 min)
About 1h30 to 2 hours at 24 °C.
Ready to cook
Egg wash the surface well before baking (not counted in the dough); sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if you like. Baking time depends on the size of the loaves. If the oven has vents, keep them open throughout the bake.

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Baking

- conventional oven, without steam
- Overall temperature: 190 °C
- Time: 33 minutes
- No steam. Time calculated for 510 g (18 oz) braids: Larger loaves or pan loaves take longer.

The calculator adapts baking times to the weight of your pieces. Open the calculator

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