Golden Brioche Loaf + some catching up

I've been traveling the past month and so have been unable to post every week.  Every time I've been home, however, I've been baking!

The Golden Brioche Loaves that are this week's Tuesdays with Dorie choice, need to be started a day in advance.  The batter is fun to make, though time consuming.  The most amazing part was to beat in 3 cubes of butter, a little at a time.  The sticky dough turned into a smooth batter--isn't butter wonderful?

After the batter rose in the refrigerator, I got it out this morning and rolled four little logs which I placed into the loaf pan.  Dorie says it takes up to an hour an a half to rise, depending on the warmth of the kitchen.  My kitchen was downright cool today so after five hours I declared the dough risen enough and baked it up.  It just came out of the oven and smells heavenly.  I think it will taste great, but it certainly didn't rise as much as I thought.

Golden Brioche Loaf

With the second half of the dough I plan to make Dorie's Brioche raisin snails tomorrow.  The raisins have been rum-i-fied, and the pastry cream made.

And now for the catching up:
I made the Dimply Plum Cake but used peaches instead of plums.  During peach season, I gorge myself on peaches!  It was wonderful with Dorie's lemon zest and fresh basil variation and folks who ate it at brunch last week pronounced it wonderful.

Dimply PEACH cake

I also made Carrot Spice Muffins, which were August 9th's TWD choice.  I've baked them in the past, but last week I made them as mini muffins because they were to be served at a pot luck where there were lots of choices.  They were tasty as mini muffins, but I think I prefer the concentration of flavor in the regular size.

Carrot Spice Muffins