Buondì is one of the most popular Italian breakfast brioches, and we had a lot of fun making this homemade vegan version of it. Vegan Buondì is delicious, soft, pretty, easy to make, and filled with apricot jam. In Italy, we eat this type of brioche for a quick breakfast on the go, or as a mid-morning snack.

Buondì - Italian Breakfast Brioche

Check out our best vegan brunch recipe collection!

What is Buondì?

In Italian Buondì means “Good Day”. Buondì is a type of Italian breakfast brioche first developed in 1953 from Motta, an iconic Italian confectionary brand famous for its Panettone, Pandoro and Gelato.

The inventor of Buondì, Mr Angelo Motta, wanted to make a small brioche from a dough similar to the popular Panettone (a Christmas brioche-bread).

Original Buondì Motta
Original Buondì Motta with apricot jam
Buondì filled with apricot jam
Homemade Buondì with apricot jam

This new product quickly took off, and today there are many variations of Buondì: with apricot jam, cherry jam, chocolate, plain, custard, cacao, and even whole-wheat.

It goes without saying that for me, growing up in Italy, buondì brings up all kinds of memories. I would always buy one, with apricot jam, at the train-station caffè for 50 cents, and eat it on my way to school.

Ingredients & Substitutions

For the vegan brioche dough

  • Flour: I like to use a semi-whole-wheat flour (also known as first-clear flour) but you can use either bread flour or all-purpose flour.
  • Sugar: plain white sugar.
  • Yeast: I use instant dry yeast, but you can also use fresh yeast, or active dry yeast. If you use fresh yeast, you need to triple the yeast amount.
  • Soy milk: I find soy milk to be the best for this kind of brioche, but you can replace it with almond milk.
  • Vegetable oil: I use sunflower oil, but you can replace it with any vegetable oil that has a neutral flavour. I do not recommend olive oil or coconut oil.
  • Aromas: vanilla, the real bean or the extract, the zest of one orange and a pinch of salt.
Italian Breakfast Brioche Close Up
Italian Breakfast Brioche Close Up

Other ingredients

  • Glaze: made with almonds, hazelnuts, soy milk and powdered sugar.
  • Pearl sugar: to sprinkle on top of the Buondì.
  • Filling: optional but recommended. We use store-bought apricot jam, but you can also fill it with vanilla custard, chocolate custard, or pistachio custard.

Equipment

You’ll need a small blender to make the glaze. If you want to fill the brioche with jam, chocolate, or custard, then you’ll need a pastry piping bag with a long and thin nozzle. The rest of the recipe can be made with a bowl and a worktop.

How to scale this recipe?

You can make 9 brioches with the recipe below. However, this recipe is super easy to scale up. You can just multiply the ingredients and it will work. I would not recommend scaling the recipe down, as it will be hard to work the dough properly if it’s too small.

Mistakes I made

  • Too slow with the glaze: when applying the glaze on the brioches you need to be quite fast or else the brioches will deflate too much due to the weight of the glaze. It is ok if the brioches deflate a bit, but my tip is to first preheat the oven, then when the oven reaches temperature, you can apply the glaze on the buondì, sprinkle with the pearl sugar, and bake immediately.
  • Baked for too long: the first time around, I baked the brioches for 18 minutes and that is way too long! I find that I get a moist, soft, and light brioche if I bake them for 13 minutes.
Italian breakfast brioches cooling on a rack
Italian breakfast brioches cooling on a rack

Tips

  • Pick the right yeast: I use instant dry yeast, which doesn’t require to be activated in warm water and sugar, but it can simply be added to the flour.

    If you don’t have instant dry yeast, you can use either 7g (1.4tsp) of active dry yeast or 25g of fresh yeast. In both cases, you need to first dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and sugar before adding it to the flour.
  • Proof the dough in a warm place: turn on your oven for 30 to 45 seconds, then turn it off and put the dough to proof inside it. You can also keep the light of the oven on (just the light, not the heat), if you have that function.
  • Cover the dough with a damp cloth: a damp cloth is better than a piece of film because 1) it doesn’t add up to plastic pollution, and 2) because it keeps the dough moist, helping the yeast do a better job.

    Keep in mind though that the dough will double or triple in volume, so leave enough space between the dough and the damp cloth.

Storage

Let the Italian breakfast brioches cool down for 15 minutes, then store them in a food-grade plastic bag to keep them moist and soft for up to 4 days. Do not keep out or they’ll dry out fast. No need to put them in the refrigerator.

You can freeze the buondì but it is best to do so after the first proofing, once you have shaped them.

Put them on the baking tray, then freeze for 15 minutes. When they are hard, transfer them into a freezing bag and put them back in the freezer. They keep frozen for up to 3 months.

To thaw them, take them out of the freezer, put them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and let thaw. Once they are thawed, let them proof for 1 hour before applying the glaze and cooking them.

Variations

  • Chocolate brioche: fill the brioche with our vegan chocolate custard for a delicious and chocolatey breakfast brioche.
  • Custard brioche: you can also fill them with our low-fat vegan custard, or with our full-fat vegan custard. They are both delicious inside this Italian breakfast brioche.
  • Coffee flavored brioche: if you are a coffee lover, you can make our vegan coffee custard and use it to fill the brioche. This one is a perfect combination for a quick breakfast!
  • Pistachio filling: if you have a weak spot for pistachios, like us, you are going to love this breakfast brioche filled with our rich pistachio custard.
  • Any other jams: the original buondì is with apricot jam but you can fill it with any other jam of your liking. We love to use cherry or sour cherry jam as an alternative.

For other Vegan Italian Brioche recipes check out our:

For many more breakfast ideas, check out our breakfast category page.

Italian breakfast brioche - Buondì

Italian breakfast brioche – Buondì

By: Nico Pallotta
4.80 from 5 votes
Buondì is one of the most popular Italian breakfast brioches, and we had a lot of fun making this homemade vegan version of it. Vegan Buondì are delicious, soft, pretty, easy to make, and filled with apricot jam. In Italy we eat this type of brioche for a quick breakfast on the go, or as a mid-morning snack.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 13 minutes
Proofing: 3 hours
Total Time: 3 hours 33 minutes
Servings: 9 brioches
Course: Breakfast, Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: Italian

Equipment

  • Blender
  • Pastry piping bag

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 250 g bread flour or all-purpose flour
  • 50 g sugar
  • 3 g instant dry yeast
  • 125 g soy milk or other plant milk
  • 35 g sunflower oil or other vegetable oil
  • ½ orange zest
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 pinch salt

For the topping

  • 2 tbsp almonds
  • 2 tbsp hazelnuts
  • 3 tbsp soy milk or other plant milk
  • 2 tbsp powdered sugar
  • 4 tbsp pearl sugar

Instructions 

For the brioche dough

  • In a large bowl, add flouryeast, sugar and mix them together.
    Add lukewarm soy milk, sunflower oilsaltvanillaorange zest, and mix with a spatula.
    NB: I use instant dry yeast that can be added directly to the flour. If you use fresh yeast or active dry yeast, they need to be dissolved in a lukewarm liquid and sugar before adding them in.
    Preparing the brioche dough
  • Transfer onto a worktop and knead with your hands vigorously for at least 5 minutes, or until you get a smooth, soft, and moist dough ball.
    Kneaded brioche dough
  • Brush the inside of a large clean bowl with some oil. Then put in the dough ball, and brush it with a thin layer of oil. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen cloth.
    Let proof the dough for 2 to 3 hours in a warm place. It needs to triple in volume.
    TIP: you can turn your oven on for 30 seconds to make it slightly warm. Then turn it off and let the dough proof in it. If you use all-purpose flour 2 hours should be enough. If you use a semi-whole grain flour, then 3 hours are needed.
    proofed dough double in volume
  • After proofing, transfer the dough onto a clean worktopFold it on itself three times then cut it into small pieces of about 50g / 1.8 oz each.
    Cutting the dough in small pieces
  • With the tip of your fingers slightly flatten each piece of dough, then roll it on itself to form a dough ball. With the palm of your hand roll the dough ball on the worktop to make it smooth.
    Rolling the dough into small balls
  • Take each dough ball and roll it with your hand to form a cylinder shape.
    Then flatten each piece giving it a rectangular shape.
    Cut the tips off to give it a sharper rectangular shape.
    shaping the buondì
  • Place each piece on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and let proof a second time in a warm place for 1 to 1.5 hours.
    second proofing

For the glaze

  • Im a blender blend together almonds, hazelnuts, powdered sugar and soy milk till you get a spreadable almond paste. Set aside.
    NB: the glaze tastes best if the nuts are roasted first. If yours aren't, then toast them in the oven for 8 minutes at 360F / 180C.
    glaze for the brioche
  • Preheat the oven to 180C or 356F. Gently spread some of the glaze on top of the brioches. You need to be quick because the brioches will deflate. You can use a spoon or a small spatula.
    Sprinkle some pearl sugar on top and bake on the lower rack of the oven for about 12 to 14 minutes.
    Brioche ready to be bakes
  • Optional: to get an even tastier brioche you can fill it with apricot jam using a pastry piping bag. To do that, let the brioche cool down for 10 minutes, then fill them from the bottom.
    filling the buondì with apricot jam

Video

Notes

MEASUREMENTS
We recommend using the metric system for this recipe.
Instant dry yeast does not need to be dissolved in warm water. You can replace instant dry yeast with the same quantity of active dry yeast but active dry yeast needs to be dissolved in warm water or warm milk and sugar before being used. 
You can also replace instant dry yeast with fresh yeast. In this case you need to use 3x more fresh yeast, so multiply my dose for yeast times 3. Also, fresh yeast needs to be dissolved in warm water or warm milk and sugar before being used.
TIP: to preserve the brioches soft, let them cool down for 15 minutes, then store them in a food-grade plastic bag.

Nutrition

Calories: 217kcal, Carbohydrates: 34g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 7g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Potassium: 102mg, Dietary Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 12g, Vitamin A: 92IU, Vitamin B6: 1mg, Vitamin C: 5mg, Vitamin E: 3mg, Vitamin K: 1µg, Calcium: 42mg, Folate: 29µg, Iron: 1mg, Manganese: 1mg, Magnesium: 17mg, Zinc: 1mg
Tried this recipe? Leave a comment below or mention @theplantbasedschool on Instagram. We are also on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.

Nico and Louise in the kitchen

Hi! We are Nico & Louise

Welcome to The Plant-Based School, a food blog with easy, tasty, and wholesome recipes.

Our aim is to help you and your family eat more veggies through delicious recipes with simple ingredients.

Easy right?

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating