Brioche, a Viennoiserie made at home in a small cake pan can be sliced for perfectly round sandwich bread. Brioche makes excellent toast, French toast or pain perdú.
Viennoiseries is the collective French term for baked goods made from yeast-leavened dough or from puff-pastry. Viennoiseries typically have a high-protein and fat content from eggs, butter, milk, and cream, and are usually sweetened with sugar, ingredients which lend them a rich character. The Viennoiserie yeast-dough, once formed and risen, is often "gilded" or laminated with an egg-wash to make it shiny and deep in colour after baking. Viennoiseries are eaten for breakfast or with tea and coffee.
Examples of Viennoiseries include brioches, croissants, Vienna bread and baguette Viennoise, pain au chocolat, pain au lait, pain aux raisins, chouquettes, chausson aux pommes, Danish pastry, and bugnes.
A surge in popularity of Viennese-style baked goods in France began with the opening of Boulangerie Viennoise operated by printer August Zang in 1839.
©M-J de Mesterton