sweet bread tart
Lingering at the table on a late, lazy weekend morning is a fine circumstance for placing this yeasty, supremely light and buttery breakfast bread on the menu. Just for fun, the dough, simplistic and direct, is baked in a deep tart pan.
The resulting sweetened bread can be sliced into pie-shape wedges and offered as pastry or as an accompaniment to smoky protein (thick bacon or ham) and eggs.
The key to making a distinguished bread tart is twofold—to establish a decent rise of the dough to develop flavor and to fashion just the right butter and sugar finish. In this case, the finish is a generous topping of light or dark muscovado sugar and butter that forms crusty, irresistible flavor pools on the top. The focus is, at once, on sweet, soft, and tenderly crusty, but know that bits of dried fruit (such as a generous 3/4 cup of cranberries, cherries, and apricots—alone or in combination) or chopped crystallized ginger (3 tablespoons) can be kneaded into the dough after the first rise. The bread is an inviting canvas for a baker’s imagination, but the plain version is just fine with me.
a regal breakfast bread
serving: one 10-inch sweet bread, creating about 10 slices
ahead: 2 days
sponge
21/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup warm (105 to 110 degrees F) water
1/4 cup unsifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon warm (105 to 110 degrees F) water
butter dough
1/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
seeds from 1/3 small vanilla bean, scraped clean (optional)
2 cups unsifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size chunks, softened
butter and muscovado sugar finish
3 tablespoons cool unsalted butter (preferably clarified butter), diced
3 tablespoons firmly packed light or dark muscovado sugar, or a combination of both
For the sponge, stir together the yeast, the 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar, and the 1/4 cup warm water in a heatproof measuring cup. Allow the mixture to stand until swollen, 6 to 7 minutes.
Scrape the swollen yeast mixture into a small mixing bowl. Blend in the flour and the 1 tablespoon warm water. Cover with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes, or until foamy or almost doubled in bulk. Remove and discard the plastic wrap.
To complete the butter dough, combine the milk and the granulated sugar in a small saucepan and set over low heat; when the sugar has partially dissolved (after 3 to 4 minutes), remove from the heat and scrape into a medium-size heatproof mixing bowl. Cool for 5 minutes, or until lukewarm, then blend in the vanilla extract, beaten eggs, vanilla bean seeds (if you are using them), and sponge mixture. Whisk the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg-sponge-milk mixture to the flour and stir to form a sticky, dense mixture, using a wooden spoon or flat wooden paddle. By hand, beat in the softened butter, 2 tablespoons at a time. The dough mixture will be sticky and dense, and offer resistance during the mixing. Persevere! Continue to beat the dough for 4 to 5 minutes, when it will turn quite elastic (it will still be quite sticky); this step establishes its texture.
Turn the dough into a bowl heavily coated with softened unsalted butter and, with your buttered fingertips, lightly turn to coat all sides in a film of butter (it will turn into a sticky mass, not a tight cohesive “ball” as some other yeast doughs do), make several cuts with a pair of kitchen scissors, cover tightly with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap, and let rise at cool room temperature for 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes, or until doubled in bulk. Rushing the rise in an environment warmer than room temperature will cause the butter to ooze out and the resulting dough (and baked cakelike bread) to turn out heavy, dense, and coarse-textured, rather than light and eggy; if this happens, lightly work an additional 4 teaspoons bleached all-purpose flour into the dough, enclose the dough in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 1 hour before continuing with the recipe. If the dough is refrigerated for the hour, increase the next rise of the formed dough, before it is topped with the butter and sugar, up to 30 minutes.
Film the inside of a fluted 10-inch false-bottomed tart pan (2 inches deep) with softened unsalted butter.
Remove and discard the sheet of plastic wrap covering the dough. With your buttered fingertips, lightly compress the risen dough, turn it into the prepared pan, and tap it lightly into an even layer. The dough will be sticky, and if it resists tapping into an even layer, let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes, then resume. Cover the pan loosely with a sheet of food-safe plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Remove and discard the plastic wrap covering the dough. Scatter the diced pieces of butter over the surface, then crumble on the muscovado sugar, taking care to avoid sprinkling it too close to the rim of the tart pan (to avoid sticking problems after baking). Let rise for an additional 25 minutes, uncovered, or until nicely puffy and just doubled in bulk (the edges will rise to about ⅓ inch below the top of the pan). On a dry day, or in a cold kitchen, the additional rise (after the topping has been applied) could be as long as 30 to 35 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F in advance of baking.
Place a rimmed sheet pan in the oven 5 minutes before baking the bread.
Place the dough-filled tart pan on the sheet pan.
Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until set, a deep golden color on top, and baked through. The surface of the baked bread will be uneven (slightly higher and slightly lower in various places), depending on how the butter and sugar have melted down into large and small pools—very natural, deliciously rustic, and texturally interesting. Cool the bread in the pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Unmold the bread, leaving it on the round base, then return to the cooling rack. Cool for 30 to 45 minutes. Serve tepid (to prevent biting into a too-hot sugar topping) or at room temperature, cut into wedges. Or tear the bread into irregular pieces. Store in an airtight container.
notes
• muscovado sugar has a rich and prominent molasses flavor (the dark more so than the light) and can be used in spice cake or gingerbread as well as in toppings and fillings; light brown sugar or dark brown sugar can be substituted, but the flavor of the topping will be less intense and molasses-y
• the sweet bread is baked in a fluted 10-inch false-bottomed tart pan (2 inches deep); a round 10-inch layer cake pan (2 inches deep) may be substituted for the tart pan (in which case, you will need to line it first with a circle of ovenproof parchment paper)
• the bread must be served tepid, as the butter and sugar finish retains significant heat
• use a finely serrated knife to cut the bread if you are not hand-tearing it into irregular pieces
