Brioche

On the weekend I decided to treat my partner to a fancy, frenchy meal at home for being such a fabbo guy.

I went to town on it, and made 5 courses of yum, including:

1. Brioche and walnut pate
2. Autumn harvest soup
3. Jerusalem artichoke puree with sauteed mushrooms
4. Nut loaf, Brussels sprouts and blueberry, pomegranate and ginger sauce
5. Caramel apples and roast hazelnut and cocoa nib chocolate bark

It was very tasty, and also too much food. We only got half way through, then saved the rest for lunch on Sunday.

I didn’t get photos of everything, and not all the recipes will be posted here. You’ll need to head to my other blog, Not Your Nan’s Vegie Patch, for the recipes for the soup and the puree/mushroom thing which I’ll post soonish – they both included mostly ingredients I grew myself.

I did make sure to get a shot of the brioche though, so I could illustrate the recipe to share with you.

Golden vegan brioche!

I have to confess I don’t think I’ve ever actually eaten brioche before, but this isn’t an entirely faithful version anyway, given my impatience and the need to replace the eggs and the butter.

I used these two recipes as a base, then veganised using xanthum gum, Vegg (the main ingredient is stinky black salt), Nuttelex and Melrose Omega Care spread.

Against the odds, my vegan brioche turned out gorgeous and yellow and soft and melty. It didn’t have much in the way of it’s own flavour, as I was trying to keep it neutral to go with both the savoury walnut pate and the sweet blackberry jam. If I make it again I’ll add either salt or sugar to match it’s purpose.

I have yet to manage the egg-wash effect of a shiny surface on any baked good – if you have a trick, let me know!

Brioche, apricots, pate and jam

 

Vegan Brioche

Makes 12 little brioches in a muffin tray

1/2 cup soy milk

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp Vegg (or a mix of black salt, nutritional yeast and cornflour)

2 tsp xanthan gum

3/4 cup water

8 tablespoons vegan margarine (I used half Nuttelex, and half Melrose Omega Blend)

1/4 cup sugar

1. Warm the milk to lukewarm in a pot or the microwave.
2. Add the yeast and 1/2 a cup of flour and whisk together. Sit, covered, in a warm place until the mixture doubles (mine only took about 5 minutes).
3. In a blender, pulse the Vegg, water and xanthum gum until smooth and thick.
4. In a large bowl, mix the margarine, sugar, yeast mixture and egg replacement until smooth. 2 1/2 cupfs of plain flour and mix to form a sticky dough.
5. Using the left over flour, knead with your hands, or if yours is too sticky (like mine was) with a bendy spatula until the dough starts to get a little more elastic (only about 5 minutes, don’t overdo it).
6. Grease a 12-muffin pan.
7. Divide the mixture into 12 parts and let rise in the muffin pan, covered with a tea towel. I put little balls of dough on top of each brioche, to simulate the properly french-ish look, but you don’t have to do this.
8. After allowing to rise for about 30 minutes in a warm place (my dough grew by about one third in this time), bake at 170 degrees celsius until golden brown on top. Mine took about 2 minutes, your oven will vary.
9. Et voila! Enjoy warm, with delicious spreads of your choosing.

 

NB: Please ignore my poor punctuation/grammar/layout/etc. I’m not really putting much effort into this blog at the moment, I just thought vegan brioche was a little too great not the share.