This beautiful braided sweet bread is perfect for winter. If you want to make an impression on your guests then this 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’m using Valsoia here). 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 and 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.
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).
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
- 14 g fresh yeast
- 235 ml (scant 1 cup) unsweetened cashew milk
- 65 g coconut blossom sugar
- 420 g bread flour
- 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
- powdered sugar for decoration
Instructions
- 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.
- In a large dish mix together flour, salt, vanilla, lemon zest and the rest of the sugar.
- Add butter, rum and the bubbly mixture of cashew milk with yeast and 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. Divide it into 4 equal parts and shape each part into a ball. Leave it to rest for 5-10 min.
- Roll the four dough balls into flat round discs with a 22-24 cm diameter. 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. 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 into 4 equal parts until you get a total of 16 equal parts.
- Take two adjacent dough strips and pull on them 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.
- Optionally brush the top 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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