Buns & Brioches

Brioche is one of the original enriched breads.  Enriched meaning that it contains lots of butter and eggs.  There was mention of brioche in print as early as the 13th century, though it's believed to be the descendant of a type of Roman bread.

The quote usually attributed to Marie Antoinette about letting the peasants eat cake, many people think it was actually mistranslated and refers to brioche.  She was saying to let the peasants eat brioche. There was two versions of brioche during that time in France.  One of them was for the rich, which was chock full of butter, and one was for the poor, which had minimal amounts of butter.  There were apparently strict rules governing who could buy which version.  By saying "let them eat brioche" Marie Antoinette was saying let the poor eat the rich person's version of the bread.