This recipe is extremely simple, using only four ingredients, two pots, a sieve, and a cheesecloth. It takes less than 30 minutes to make, and the result is fantastic. Traditionally, ricotta (Italian: re-cooked) is made from re-cooking the whey drippings after making another cheese (i.e mozzarella). In this recipe, and many other quick home recipes, you can produce a comparably delicious "ricotta" cheese using proteins from heavy cream and milk instead of from whey drippings.

     This is an American twist on a classic french bread. I came up with the idea when I was gathering my brioche ingredients and found a pack of Reese's mini peanut butter cups nearby. It is best to shape this bread when the dough is cold/chilled, as the chocolate will melt in warm dough and become kind of messy. This is a rich bread, but it's hard not to like unless you don't like peanut butter!

Yield: 6 medium brioches (or 12 small brioches)

Ingredients:
3 - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp sugar
6-8 mini Reeses peanut butter cups (or 2-3 regular peanut butter cups), chopped
1 1/4 Tsp salt
1 tbsp instant yeast
3 large eggs*
1/4 cup milk
10 Tbsp butter
*You can save the white of a 4th egg to brush on the buns if you plan to top them with sugar

Directions:
1) In a mixer or bread machine (programmed for dough), mix together 3 cups of flour and the rest of the ingredients to form a smooth dough. Add the salt last as the dough begins to form ropes/clumps. It will be sticky at first and may require the extra 1/2 cup flour to make the dough come together if the conditions in your kitchen differ (temperature, humidity, etc). Remove from mixer and knead with your hands until silky smooth.

2) Form the dough into a ball. Place it in a greased bowl and let rise for ~1hr. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour (until chilled), or as long as overnight. This will slow the fermentation process and will make the dough easier to braid/shape.

3) Decide which shape you want. For this particular recipe, I took the dough out of the refrigerator and divided it into 12 pieces (you can do six and make them bigger). It was at this point that I tucked the chopped Reese's peanut butter piece into the cold dough.

A good examples of the traditional brioche shaping technique is shown in the videos below:

4) Place the dough (now containing the Reese's) into greased pan(s) of your choice, cover lightly, and let rise in a warm place for 1.5-2hrs until doubled (it will look very puffy).

5) Preheat the oven to 375F. Right before the swirls are cooked, you can brush them with the egg white of a 4th egg and sprinkle sugar or cinnamon sugar on top.

6) Place swirls (on cookie sheet) in oven and bake for about 30-35min. NOTE: every oven cooks differently, so watch your swirls after 10 minutes. The buttery dough should be a golden/deep brown when done, and should sound hollow when tapped on the underside.

7) Remove buns from oven and, after a few minutes, transfer to rack for cooling.

NOTE: Due to lack of preservatives in the dough, the breads taste the best within the first few hours of baking. I would recommend freezing them if you plan to eat them more than one day after baking, as they will rapidly become stale.