Eggless Brioche

I have been wanting to make 'Brioche' for a very long time now. I kept on pushing it away since all the recipes I found on the internet need tons of butter. Brioche is basically a butter and egg bread. So, I can't really complain, but thought of putting sticks and sticks of butter for a loaf of bread made me not want to make it at all. Plus, they need lots of eggs and I don't eat eggs. Yes, you have seen me post recipes of cookies, pancakes, waffles with eggs here, but I just make them for my kids. When it comes to bread, it is a totally different story. I love bread. And there was no way I would make bread and not be able to eat it. I am glad I tried this recipe, because this is going to be my brioche recipe for life. If you didn't already know, Brioche makes beautiful croutons for soups. I'll post how to make them at home some other time, but for now, enjoy this eggless brioche recipe. I do apologize for bad pictures though. I made it last night and there was no way kids and my husband would let me wait for natural light before they dug in.

I used a breadmachine to knead the dough, but you could use mixer or do it by hand. (By now, you must know I am lazy..)

Ingredients:
Adapted from 'Bread Machine Baking' by Lora Brody and Millie Apter

• Bread flour - 2 2/3 cups
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Sugar - 6 TBSP
• Active dry yeast - 2 1/2 tsp
• Butter - 4 TBSP or 1/2 a stick melted and cooled (original recipe had more than this)
• Warm water - 6 TBSP
• Silken tofu blended and measured - 1/2 cup + 1 TBSP (In place of 2 extra-large eggs)
• Mixture of 1 tsp milk and 1 tsp olive oil for brushing before baking
• Little butter to brush the loaf after baking.

Method:
Place tofu, melted and cooled butter, water, sugar, salt, flour, yeast in the mentioned order and start the breadmachine in dough cycle. Or if you are doing by hand, mix in yeast with warm water and sugar. Let it sit for couple of minutes. Add melted butter, tofu, salt and make a mixture. Slowly add flour and make the dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes and place in a well oiled bowl and cover it with a clean towel. Let it rise for an hour and then deflate the dough. I let all this happen in the breadmachine. Take out the dough and start forming brioche. Brioche is usually a big ball of dough and a small pebble sized ball of dough on the top. I just made 8 balls out of this dough and placed side by side in well greased 9 X 5 pan. Cover with a greased aluminum foil and let it sit in a warm place for an hour or till doubled. I kept mine in the oven with light on.

Towards the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 375 F (Remove the pan from the oven if you have left it there to rise). Just before placing the pan in the oven, brush the top with the mixture of milk and oil. Place it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and tent with aluminum foil to prevent browning. This browns too fast. Reduce the temperature to 350 F and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes. It should sound hollow when tapped and should have a beautiful golden brown crust. Remove from the oven and brush the top with butter. Remove to wire rack after 5 minutes and let it cool completely before slicing. There is no need for making this shape and you can just shape it like a regular loaf. (That is what I am going to do when I want to make croutons)

The smell of this bread baking is heavenly. And this probably was the best bread I have ever baked and trust me when I tell you this I have baked lots of bread. We have probably bought bread from the store 3 times in the past 5 years. So, that must tell you something. We all loved the bread so much, I am thinking of making it again today.

I am submitting this bread to 'Yeast Spotting' hosted here.
Happy Baking!! Pin It