A Brioche That Will Make a Believer Out of You - The New York Times

You don’t have to dedicate your life to the ancient practice of baking to yield a stunning loaf. You may just find you want to. By Lisa Donovan In Angers, France, at a bakery called Boulangerie des Carmes, you can behold (and taste) the most beautiful brioche loaves gracing bakery shelves — I’ll say it — universewide. They are perfectly and only slightly sweet, complex, with a textured crumb that makes even the most trained baker marvel. This particular brioche is a testament to practice and evolution. To craft a loaf this exquisite takes a dedicated lifetime of bringing things back to basics. I’ve yet to meet a baker more dedicated to this ideal than Richard Ruan, the owner of Boulangerie des Carmes and a winner of the M.O.F. (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), a prestigious honor for craftspeople. His hands have not only given the world this best, by my estimation, brioche, but he also maintains an Old World standard of quality that is neither stodgy nor outdated. His bakery occupies the c

You don’t have to dedicate your life to the ancient practice of baking to yield a stunning loaf. You may just find you want to. By Lisa Donovan In Angers, France, at a bakery called Boulangerie des Carmes, you can behold (and taste) the most beautiful brioche loaves gracing bakery shelves — I’ll say it — universewide. They are perfectly and only slightly sweet, complex, with a textured crumb that makes even the most trained baker marvel. This particular brioche is a testament to practice and evolution. To craft a loaf this exquisite takes a dedicated lifetime of bringing things back to basics.