Vegan Brioche Buns Fluffy Buttery

If you didn’t yet have a favorite vegan roll in mind for the holiday table, say hello to these gorgeous vegan Brioche Rolls. They are soft, buttery, flaky and just about everything you’d expect your favorite brioche buns to be. But they’re also eggless and dairy-free. Making a brioche is a beautiful experience, and a magical one. It’s so much fun to watch the dough swallow up what seems like gobs and gobs of butter, becoming a flappy, wet mess. But somehow, as you continue to knead, it transforms into the softest, silkiest, smoothest dough that’s almost cathartic to work with. After the bread rolls have baked up, all plump and golden, you can tear them off into these perfect, flaky, layered clouds that are heaven to eat. I’ve shared with you two vegan brioche recipes before–one for my amazing vegan Olive Oil Brioche, made with extra virgin olive oil, and another one for a healthier vegan Avocado Brioche, where fatty avocado replaces the butter, creating a beautiful, flaky green bread. While the fat I used in both those brioches was unconventional – olive oil and avocado, both with great results – these brioche rolls veer more toward the traditional with vegan butter. (You can also use the other two brioche recipes to bake rolls, if you’re so inclined). Instead of eggs, so crucial in giving brioche that soft, feathery texture, I use aquafaba in these vegan brioche rolls. It works perfectly.

Why you’ll love these Vegan Brioche Rolls

They’re delicious. These rolls taste amazing, with a light, fluffy crumb and a hint of sweetness: exactly as brioche is meant to taste, but without the eggy flavor. They’re easy to make. Making brioche does require some patience and making sure your dough has the right texture. But other than that, this is not a difficult process by any means and there’s no reason you cannot try it with good results. You can shape them as you like. I baked these up as pull apart rolls. But you can also place them on a baking sheet, further apart from each other, and bake them into cute, chubby, rounded rolls. You can shape them into brioche burger buns. Or if you have those classic brioche tins, bake them in those. You can also just form rolls and bake them up in a loaf pan, creating a traditional-looking vegan brioche bread. They’re an everyone pleaser. In my home these brioche rolls–the recipe makes 10 – do not last more than a day. If you have a bigger crowd, you might just want to double up on the recipe.

How to make vegan brioche rolls

Place the yeast in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the nondairy milk and mix. Set aside for five minutes to allow the yeast to bloom. Add 1 cup flour, aquafaba, sugar and salt to the yeast mixture in the bowl. Mix with a spatula or using the paddle attachment on the stand mixer.

Gradually add the remaining flour to the bowl and mix by hand or in the stand mixer until all the ingredients have come together. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest 20 minutes. Once the dough has rested, knead it. You can do this on medium-low speed in the stand mixer with the dough hook attached, for about 10 minutes. Since this is a sticky dough, this is best done in a mixer, but if you do it by hand be patient. It will take about 15 minutes before you get the right consistency. Fold the dough over itself and use a bench scraper to scrape up any that is left behind and add it back to the dough. By the end the dough should look smooth and supple. It will be soft but no longer sticky and it will be quite elastic.

At this point begin adding the butter to the dough. Again, a stand mixer is better for this, but if you’re doing this by hand make sure you knead vigorously as you add the butter in. Set the stand mixer to medium-high or high speed and add the butter one tablespoon at a time, making sure you drop the butter on the dough and not the side (so it doesn’t just flap around on the sides). Once you’ve added all of the butter to the dough the dough will look loose and stick to the bottom of the bowl. Just continue to knead until a very smooth, elastic dough forms. It will be soft and shiny but not at all sticky.

Form the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Let it stand two hours or until doubled. Once the dough has doubled, knead it briefly, then shape into a smooth ball again and place in an oiled bowl. Cover tightly and refrigerate eight hours or overnight. This really helps the flavor of the brioche develop.

The next morning remove the dough from the fridge. Shape it into 10 smooth rounds. If making pull apart rolls, as I did, place the rounds in an oiled two-quart baking dish, apart but close to each other. For more rounded buns, place them at least two inches apart on an oiled baking sheet. Cover loosely with oiled cling wrap and let the buns rise for an hour and a half or until they are nearly doubled but not quite. My kitchen was rather cool on a fall day and it took nearly two hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of an egg wash, which is used in traditional brioche, you can brush on an optional glaze of 1 teaspoon maple syrup, 1 teaspoon nondairy milk and 1 teaspoon oil on the tops of the risen rolls for a shiny look and darker color. Bake the rolls for 20-22 minutes or until the tops are lightly brown. Remember that for more color you will need to add more sugar to the rolls. Let the rolls cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or cold.

Tips for troubleshooting

A brioche dough, at the first kneading, will be wet. It should become smooth after kneading for 10 minutes in the stand mixer or 15 minutes by hand but if you find that it’s not, add a bit of flour, no more than a tablespoon at a time, until it does. The butter may take a while to incorporate into the dough, especially if you are kneading by hand, but be patient and keep kneading vigorously and it will get absorbed. The dough will look wet and sticky for a bit but as you knead it will come together and become smooth and shiny with no stickiness. If you find that you simply cannot get the butter incorporated, add a tablespoon or two of flour to the dough, which will help. But don’t do this in a hurry–add only if you absolutely have to.