This beautiful braided sweet bread is perfect for winter. If you want to make an impression on your guests then this vegan Nutella snowflake (or you could also call it a star) will definitely do the job. It looks spectacular. In addition it’s a really great dessert for larger gatherings because it’s so easy to divide it into slices. Just pull or cut into a branch of the snowflake and you have a portion for one guest. It’s a really fun dessert to serve.
This sweet treat is made of two parts. First one is the dough. The dough has a nice aromatic taste due to rum and lemon zest. The wonderful smell from the rum will come out of the dough while baking. Divide the dough in four equal parts and roll them out in the shape of a circle.
The second part of the recipe is vegan Nutella. Choose vegan chocolate hazelnut spread that you love (I used chocolate hazelnut spread from Valsoia). Spread 1/3 of vegan Nutella on top of first circle, place the second circle over that, spread 1/3 of vegan Nutella on top, place the third circle over that, spread the last 1/3 of vegan Nutella on top and top with the last circle.
Put a glass or mug in the middle of the dough on top and make a mark with it so that you will know where to stop cutting into the dough. Remove the glass or mug after that. Now cut into the stack of dough by slicing the circle into north, south, east and west points. Then divide all four branches in half and then again all eight branches in half. This is how you get 16 branches.
Take two neighbouring branches in your hands, pull a little to stretch them, then twist them once and twist them the second time.
After that bring the ends of the branches together so that the ends touch.
Repeat the same with the rest of the branches. The result should look something like that. It looks a bit like branches were making angels in the (vegan Nutella) snow.
Depending on how you decide to press the ends into each other, the snowflake could look also like this.
Put the plate with vegan Nutella snowflake in the oven and bake on the middle rack for about 25 min.
Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of the branches (but not over the centre).
Have you made this recipe? Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear your feedback.
More delicious sharing desserts:
- Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread
- Vegan Apple Crumble
- Vegan Walnut Roll (veganska potica)
- Vegan Peanut Butter and Jam Pie
Vegan Nutella Snowflake
Ingredients
- 420 g bread flour
- 65 g sugar
- 235 ml (scant 1 cup) unsweetened cashew milk
- 14 g fresh yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 tsp vanilla powder
- zest 1/4 lemon
- 45 g (3 tbsp) vegan butter melted
- 15 ml (1 tbsp) rum
- 225 g (3/4 cup + 1/2 tbsp) vegan Nutella divided
- unsweetened cashew milk for brushing on top
- powdered sugar for decoration
Instructions
- Put flour in a large bowl and separately sugar into a small bowl.
- Heat cashew milk to about 35 °C. Crumble yeast into a small dish and pour warm milk over it. Add 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp flour and mix. Leave for 5-10 min until the mixture is bubbly.
- Add the rest of the sugar, salt, vanilla and lemon zest to the flour and mix.
- Add the bubbly mixture of cashew milk with yeast, melted butter and rum. Mix until you get dough.
- Knead the dough for 5 minutes.
- Cover it with cling film and let it rise until double in size (between 1 – 1.5 hours).
- Knock the air out of the dough and shape it into a ball. Flour the working surface and place the dough on it. Divide it into 4 equal parts and shape each part into a ball. Leave it to rest for 5-15 min.
- Roll the four dough balls into flat round discs with a 22-24 cm diameter. You can help yourself with a silicone mat which has circles of different diameters drawn on it, like this. Put baking paper on the silicone mat and roll the first disc on it. Repeat the same with the rest of the dough balls, so that each dough disc has its own baking paper underneath it. Place the discs on top of each other with baking paper sheets in between.
- Place the first disc on a baking tray with the baking paper underneath it. Divide vegan Nutella into 3 equal parts. Spread 1/3 on top of the first disc and cover it with the second disc (remove the baking paper attached to it while doing that). Spread 1/3 vegan Nutella on the second disc and cover it with the third disc. Spread 1/3 vegan Nutella on the third disc and cover it with the fourth disc.
- Take a glass or a mug and place it on the top disc stack in the very centre of the circle. Press it into the dough gently so it leaves a mark but doesn't penetrate the dough.
- Cut the dough stack into 4 equal parts starting from the mark that was left by the glass to the edge. Then cut every quarter in half so that you get 8 equal parts which you then cut in half again. That way you get a total of 16 equal parts.
- Take two adjacent dough parts and pull a little to stretch them, then rotate them twice in the opposite direction of each other (rotate the left strip counter clockwise and the right one clockwise). Stick the ends together so they hold (another option is to firmly press the ends into each other for a little bit different looking snowflake).
- Cover the whole snowflake with cling film and leave it to rest for 20-30 min.
- Remove the cling film. Optionally brush the top of Nutella snowflake with unsweetened cashew milk. Bake at 180 °C for 25 min.
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on top of the branches but not in the centre.
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