Brioche is a wonderfully rich bread due to its high butter and egg content which also gives it that characteristic golden, lustrous exterior. My brioche bread recipe is very popular on the blog, and I’ve shared a bunch of other brioche-based recipes like these perfect brioche buns, brioche cinnamon rolls, strawberry custard brioche tarts, bostock pastry, and even my chocolate babka and cinnamon babka recipes. Brioche is a soft dough because of its buttery richness, and converting it to a dairy free version proved to be a little more difficult than I had envisioned. Especially because butter is an absolutely crucial ingredient in making brioche. It took me a few tries to get it right, but the final payoff made it all the more worthwhile!
How to make dairy free brioche bread
Usually when you have to substitute butter to make a recipe dairy free, you have to take into account the typically higher water content of the dairy free butter alternative (compared to real butter). Which meant I had to rely more on the eggs (than the butter alternative) to get that characteristic richness of brioche. My first couple of attempts at this didn’t work because I used too much butter and the dough didn’t rise properly. I ended up with something that resembled a dry cake that crumbled at the slightest touch. So back to the drawing board, I went. I also had to take into account the type of liquid I used to make the brioche loaf soft (and delicious!). Milk is what I usually use at this point, but that was obviously out of the question. I tried coconut milk (diluted with water to replicate the consistency of regular milk), but that didn’t work either. Mr K seemed to be happy with the failures and went on devouring them nonetheless, but I was getting increasingly more frustrated. I usually have a much easier time converting a recipe into a dairy free version. And then finally, success! I used high gluten flour and lactose free milk (the idea was to make it lactose free, not gluten free or vegan, so it wasn’t an issue to use lactose free milk – almond milk or soy milk should has worked well for a completely dairy free version too ). I have used a dough hook as you can see in the picture above, but this dough is so incredibly soft which means it’s going to stick to the bottom and the sides of your mixer, so you will need to scrape down the sides of your mixer as you go to ensure complete mixing. When I make regular brioche I use the paddle beater in my mixer, but that won’t work for this dough because if you mix this too fast, the gluten strands will break and you will end up with a very cakey loaf of bread. Not pretty, not yummy, not good. But with a dough hook though? EXCELLENT results! I mean look at that crumb? 🙂 This dough is probably one of the softest doughs I’ve ever handled. It was so soft that the impressions I made in the dough with my fingers when I transferred it into the loaf pan actually remained. So handle this dough very gently, like you would handle your friend’s baby. On to the recipe now. If you are anything like Mr. K and I, you’re not going to wait until the brioche loaf cools down to cut into it and then devour it. And look how soft it is? Like a hot knife through… brioche. The first thing we did was to toast some bread slices, and then spread some dairy free butter & some raspberry preserve on top. It was amazing! A freshly baked bread, a toasted bread slice and some fruit preserve on top. The beauty in the simplicity will never cease to amaze me! We also enjoyed a slice with some of this dairy free Nutella spread (Mocha Hazelnut Spread), but we did more with this bread too! 🙂 And it was beautiful! I know you will love it! Especially if you have lactose intolerant friends and/or family. Here it is – Dairy Free Brioche French Toast (stuffed with Mocha Hazelnut Spread), and topped off with Strawberry and Black Pepper Compote. I cannot tell you enough how insanely soft and rich this brioche bread is! If you decide to eat this bread just on its own, with nothing else, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit! You can follow me on FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST and GOOGLE-PLUS to get a sneak peek of Monday’s post and what we did with this brioche, and updates on delicious recipes that appear on the blog.
