A building block for doughnuts and more

By Yewande Komolafe, The New York Times

As a young pastry cook in the early 2000s, my 2 p.m. shift at the restaurant Tatin in Baltimore would begin with a list of doughs to prepare for the next morning.

I would start with ciabatta, a wet, almost runny dough with a seemingly endless pull. It would eventually be baked off, then cut into thin slices to adorn the bread baskets.

The breadstick dough, a simple but dense monster, was rolled out into sheets, sprinkled with herbs and cheese, then cut and shaped into long, skinny sticks.

And then there was the brioche dough, delicate yet sturdy, prickly and requiring your full attention at every step. It was one of the first bread doughs I came to really love.

I can feel awe over what I enjoy about preparing rich, shape-shifting brioche dough — the bubbling and foaming of the yeast, proof of life; the stretch of the dough after a few minutes of kneading; the way the gluten strands s...