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.
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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).
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.
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.
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:
- Soft and fluffy brioche bread (pan-brioche)
- Custard filled brioche rolls (girelle alla crema)
- Chocolate chip brioches (treccine)
- Sweet cream buns (maritozzi)
- Italian croissant with vegan custard (cornetti alla crema)
- Jam-filled donuts (bomboloni)
- Italian donuts (ciambelle)
For many more breakfast ideas, check out our breakfast category page.
Recipe
Italian breakfast brioche - Buondì
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 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pinch salt
For the topping
- 2 tablespoon almonds
- 2 tablespoon hazelnuts
- 3 tablespoon soy milk or other plant milk
- 2 tablespoon powdered sugar
- 4 tablespoon pearl sugar
Instructions
For the brioche dough
- In a large bowl, add flour, yeast, sugar and mix them together.Add lukewarm soy milk, sunflower oil, salt, vanilla, orange 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- After proofing, transfer the dough onto a clean worktop. Fold it on itself three times then cut it into small pieces of about 50g / 1.8 oz each.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
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