I came across this recipe for brioche buns filled with pistachio cream and strawberry jam and brushed with rose-flavoured syrup in the Food52 Baking Club on Facebook, where we are baking from the book “Golden” by All my uncertainty was for naught, because THESE – these are amazing!
I scaled up the recipe to make 12 buns instead of 8, but I should have only scaled up the dough and kept the pistachio cream filling and syrup at the original yield (as reflected in the recipe below), because the buns were overfilled and they exploded pretty epically in the oven – when I took them out, my first thought was, “Well, I haven’t had a total baking fail in a while – I guess it was time!”.
I glazed them anyway and took them out of the muffin tin to cool, and they started to look marginally better. Then I actually got around to tasting one and all thoughts of aesthetics were blown from my mind, because good gracious these are delicious! The brioche dough is soft yet sturdy, the pistachio cream is so so so yummy, and the strawberry jam sort of caramelizes in the oven. The rose syrup that you brush over top after baking gives them just the slightest floral taste that you probably wouldn’t identify as rose unless you knew it was there, but it enhances both the pistachio and the strawberry and makes the buns wonderfully sticky to eat.
These are seriously, seriously excellent. I took most of the batch to work the next day and my co-workers went nuts over them, despite their looking kind of wonky. I left them in a container in the lunchroom and at least four people went out of their way to tell me how delicious they were, and at the end of the day there was a note on the container that said, “Thank you, these are amazing!”. So if you want to make friends at work I highly suggest you make these. Just don’t overfill them!
Pistachio, Rose & Strawberry Buns
Adapted from Golden by
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, place in order:
105 g unsalted butter, cubed and softened to room temperature
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
45 g granulated white sugar
120 ml milk
450 g bread flour
pinch fine sea salt
Mix on low speed with the dough hook, adding up to 30 ml additional milk as needed to help incorporate all the flour if it seems too dry. Knead on medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic and cleans the bottom and sides of the bowl, about 10 minutes.
Form the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with plastic, and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours (or up to 12 hours), during which time it should start to rise.
While the dough chills, make the pistachio cream filling. In the bowl of a food processor, process 80 g shelled pistachios until they resemble fine bread crumbs. Add:
80 g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
80 g granulated white sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp all purpose flour
Process until well combined and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice.
Lightly butter the cups of a standard muffin tin. Turn out the chilled, risen dough into a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a 40 cm x 30 cm rectangle. Cut into 12 squares, each 10 cm x 10 cm.. Gently press each square into the bottom of each muffin cup, letting the excess dough lay over the sides.
Divide the pistachio cream evenly between the dough squares, then top each with 1 tsp strawberry jam (you’ll need 1/4 cup jam total).
Fold the overhanging points of each dough square into the middle over the filling (you don’t need to pinch them closed, liked I did). Let the buns proof while you preheat the oven to 400˚F (375˚F convection). You’ll know they are ready to bake when the points of the dough start to stick up slightly (after about 30-40 minutes).
While the buns proof, make the rose syrup. In a small saucepan, combine:
100 ml water
100 ml granulated white sugar
1 tbsp honey
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Skim the foam from the top with a spoon, then remove the syrup from the heat and stir in 1 tbsp rose water (I used this brand).
Baked the proofed buns in the middle of the preheated 400˚F (375˚F convection) oven for 10 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Reduce the heat to 350˚F (325˚F convection) and bake another 10 minutes, again rotating them halfway through, until golden and puffed (and hopefully your filling has not exploded like mine did). Brush the buns generously with the rose syrup when you remove them from the oven.
Cool in the tins for a few minutes, then remove to a rack to cool further.
These are best eaten fresh, but you can keep the buns in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days and re-heat them in a low oven if you wish.
