In this delicious, tender vegan olive oil brioche, aquafaba stands in for the eggs. The texture is light, feathery, and with a tight crumb, exactly the way a brioche is meant to be.
There is something rather addictive about a brioche: a goodness so subtle, it makes me wonder if the guy or gal who uttered the phrase "je ne sais quoi" for the first time ever was tucking into a brioche at the time.
This rather hallowed French bread has a light but close-knit, almost feathery, crumb, an elegant, barely-there sweetness, and a flaky, golden crust that melts in your mouth. To say that to eat a brioche is to fall in love with this bread would be understating it, but I am going to say it anyway.
I have baked many a brioche in my day, and the traditional recipe uses a ton of butter and eggs to get that incredible texture and flavor. A few years back, I shared with you on this blog my recipe for an Avocado Brioche: a healthier way to have your brioche and eat it too. It's a fantastic bread that I make over and over.
But this time I wanted to try out something a little less green 😉 and more authentic (that is if the French would ever consider olive oil and aquafaba an "authentic" replacement for butter and eggs -- jamais?)
My Vegan Olive Oil Brioche with Aquafaba is a must-try if you love baking, but I'll warn you at the start that it is a labor of love.
The bread needs two rises, as all brioches do, and the process of kneading the olive oil into the flour is a pain royale. But how else are you going to feel like the accomplished, get-your-hands-dirty-and-flour-all-over-your-hair baker that you really are?
While making a brioche, you beat in the fat after the dough has been mixed, and when you're mixing in butter, which is semi-solid at room temperature, the process goes by quite smoothly. But when I dumped in the olive oil, my dough just flapped around in a pool of oil for a long time, giving me the jitters. Was my brioche doomed? Would I have to dump all that oil and make do with an unsatisfactory loaf, if it was edible at all?
But I soldiered on and although it took all of 25 minutes in my KitchenAid on medium speed, the dough did, in the end, incorporate all of the oil. Ouf!
Lesson? Patience. (Of which you need oodles, or you wouldn't be making bread anyway.)
I baked my brioche in a sectioned loaf, made by shaping the dough into four even balls and stacking them side by side in the loaf pan. But you have some liberty with the design of it. You can make smaller balls and put them in the pan, which would make a rater cute loaf, or you could simply bake the bread into a single loaf without sectioning anything.
If you have brioche molds, use them to make 12 cute little brioche rolls with this recipe, but cut baking time down to about 12-15 minutes.
I have been experimenting with aquafaba in my breads, and you might remember the recipe for my Chocolate Vegan Babka where I used aquafaba or chickpea brine (the stuff left behind in the can after you've taken out the chickpeas) in lieu of eggs with great success. The aquafaba worked great in this brioche recipe too. In fact, I couldn't have been happier with my decision.
Here's the recipe for my divine Vegan Olive Oil Brioche with Aquafaba. Hope you try, and bon appetit!
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More vegan bread recipes from the blog:
Vegan Olive Oil Brioche with Aquafaba
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ tsp or 1 package active dry yeast
- ⅓ cup + 2 tbsp nondairy milk
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 ¾ cup bread flour
- ¾ cup aquafaba
- ¼ tsp salt
- 3 tbsp sugar
- ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil (I don't mean to sound like Ina Garten, but it's important you use a good olive oil for this recipe.)
Instructions
- Place the yeast and ⅓rd cup of warm, nondairy milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and let the yeast bloom, about five minutes.
- Add the all-purpose flour, aquafaba, sugar, and salt to the yeast mixture. Mix well on medium speed until everything is incorporated.
- Add the bread flour and knead for five minutes on medium speed or until the dough comes off the sides of the bowl and clumps around the dough hook.
- Add the olive oil and knead. It will look like there is too much oil in the beginning, but don't worry. Be patient and the dough will eventually begin to absorb the oil. It took me about 25 minutes on medium-high speed for all of the oil to incorporate.
- When all of the oil is gone and the dough looks smooth again, scrape it out of the bowl and onto a lightly floured board. Form into a smooth ball.
- Place the dough into a large, oiled bowl (or back in the bowl of the mixer after oiling) and cover with cling wrap. Place in a warm place to rise for 90 minutes.
- After 90 minutes, the dough should have doubled. Punch it down and once again form the dough into a smooth ball. Place it back in the bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight or for 8-12 hours.
- In the morning the dough should have risen again. If it's not doubled at least, let it stand outside in a warm place until it doubles. Otherwise, punch the dough down and shape into four even balls.
- Let the balls stand on the countertop, covered with a kitchen towel, for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, oil a standard eight-inch loaf pan. Place the four balls side by side in the pan so they are touching each other.
- If you want a shiny top, mix the remaining 2 tbsp milk with a tablespoon of aquafaba and some salt and apply to the top of the brioche. Do this once more just before putting the loaf in the oven.
- Once the loaf has risen and domed over the pan (about 90 minutes), place in a preheated 375 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove the loaf pan and let it cool on a rack until it can be handled. Remove the loaf from the pan and let it cool thoroughly on a rack. Serve.
Notes
I feel compelled to add a note here about plagiarism because I recently came upon a copycat recipe of this brioche made by a blogger who had tweaked ingredients slightly but otherwise mostly followed my recipe. I will not name them--they are easy enough to find with a simple Google search.
I love it when anyone makes my recipes, including other bloggers, but I follow a strict code of ethics on my blog where I not only credit a recipe if I follow it, even loosely, but I even credit an idea that I may have come up with after watching someone else do something innovative, even if my recipe is completely different.
The anonymity of the internet makes it easy to escape accountability. But giving credit where it belongs and not pretending something you didn't come up with is yours is the right--and decent--thing to do. It is something I promise to always do on this blog.
Love this vegan olive oil brioche recipe? Check out more vegan bread recipes, including sourdough breads, on Holy Cow!
Hi! I can't wait to try this. I have two questions. 1) is the olive oil overpowering, like can you taste the olive oil in the bread? 2) What about grapeseed oil?
Hi Jo, it's not overpowering at all. The fruity flavor goes really well in a brioche, which is meant to be slightly sweet. That said, grapeseed oil could work although you won't get that lovely flavor. If you try it let me know how it goes!
Hi! So I made it with avocado oil my first time and it was good. My second time I used Earth Balance unsalted butter sticks. Let those soften to room temperature. Omg it was so good! Your recipe is perfect! You can use any good oil!
I highly recommend mixing the last cup of flour with the olive oil. I didn't have any problems mixing and my dough came together in only a minute or so (in mixer). The entire family loved the results-I set the pan of bread on the table for lunch, and that's all they wanted to eat for the meal (no leftovers).
The top turned out crunchy instead of soft (still very yummy, but in a different way than I expected). Maybe because I accidentally deflated the dough when I brushed it with the milk/aquafaba mixture? Maybe because I put the pan in the oven before allowing it to preheat? Not sure, but I'm definitely going to make this recipe again!
I am new to bread making and was wondering about the step of putting the dough in the refrigerator after the first rise. I thought you needed warmth for bread making. I am going to try this, just curious about this step. Thanks!
You can put dough in the fridge. The yeast will eat slower so the dough will rise very slowly. You want to leave it in there for the full 8-10 hours for maximum rise.
Do you do anything to the aquafaba liquid or just add it as is out of the can?
Out of the can!
The bread turned out great! I added 2 spoons of sugar more and orange blossom essence to turn it into a Spanish‘roscón’- will definitely try adding oil at the same time as second part of flour next time!
Made this in 11cup Kitchenaid food processor. Used bread flour in first addition instead of AP. I then incorporated the olive oil and added the AP. Took 4-5mn to incorporate all the oil. Felt like a good dough. Will add more comments as I go
Hi
I’m a practiced baker but made the most awful mess, trying to join dough & oil- (only have hand held mixer)- in the end, consistency is great - But have you Ever tried kneeding it in along with the second part of flour?? Hope it turns out yummy
A reader had suggested adding the last cup of flour with the oil--she said it made the kneading easier. I haven't made this since, but it sounded like a great idea.
Hi
Thank you so much for this recipe!
I followed really carefully the recipe and the brioche looks amazing, but the flavour was really yeasty... do you know what could have had happened? I'd love to make it again but I don't want to mess it up, It was so close to being perfect, it was fluffy and buttery and raised as expected but the yeast flavour was overpowering. Help
Hi, happy you liked it. I've never encountered a problem with the bread being too yeasty-- the amount of yeast in the recipe is what it needs. You can always try and use less yeast but I can't gurarantee it will be as fluffy or rise as well.
This was so easy and it came out great! Thanks so much for this recipe!!
So awesome to hear, Deborah!
What a pain to mix, and what a wonderful end-product. Thanks for a great recipe.
Hahah, yes, it is a bit of a pain but worth the results. So happy you tried it. 🙂
Can you freeze this? Mine is in the oven as we speak, really well risen, looks great, can't wait to taste it.
Yes, absolutely!
Can I sub the oil be oil for refined coconut oil?
Yes!
Can I use all AP flour? I don't ave bread flour.
Yes!
Instead of refrigerating it, can I keep it over the counter until it doubles up?