Rye and chocolate Easter brioche

To the bowl of a stand mixer, add the flours, eggs, water, sugar, yeast and salt. Mix for 3 minutes on a low speed until all the ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and leave to rest for 15 minutes

Cut your cold butter into small cubes and start mixing the dough again. Slowly add the butter to the dough with the mixer running, little by little. You want to mix the dough for a total of 3 minutes, by which point all the butter should be incorporated

Remove the dough from the mixer bowl and place on a floured surface. Pour one-third of the chocolate chips onto the dough and start kneading. Repeat this until all the chocolate chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough. You may need to add a little more flour at this point, as the dough will be quite sticky. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and leave to rise for 2 hours, until the dough has doubled in size

Oil and line a 1lb loaf tin. Once the dough has had its first rise, flour your work surface and turn the dough out. Cut the dough into 3 equal sized pieces and roll out each to make 3 long sausages, each roughly 30cms in length. Join the sausages at one end, then plait them together. The plait should be long enough that you can tuck each end underneath so that the middle of the plait sits neatly on top of both ends when put into the loaf tin. Leave to rise for a further 2 hours

Preheat your oven to 190°C fan/210°C/gas mark 7

Once your loaf has almost doubled in size, generously egg-wash the top. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 175°C fan/195°C/gas mark 5 and bake for a further 15 minutes

Meanwhile, make the topping. Warm the double cream over a medium heat, then add the milk chocolate pieces and keep stirring until all the chocolate has melted. Take off the heat, add the butter and salt and stir until incorporated

Once the brioche loaf is baked, remove from the oven and allow to sit in the tin for 15 minutes

Remove from the tin, discard the baking parchment and sit on a cooling rack on top of a baking tray (you want to be able to catch any topping that slides off). Pour your chocolate topping over the brioche while it is still a bit warm, then stud it with mini Easter eggs of your choosing