Ingredients
- 330 g white flour
- 240 g cooked white beans (equivalent to 1 can; I am sure it works with other beans as well, the white ones are just very easy to hide)
- 1.8 dl g milk of your choice (I used soy milk)
- 20 g yeast
- 60 g butter of your choice (I used vegan butter)
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 big dried bean to hide in the bread
Decoration: coarse sugar and sliced almonds; to make the sugar and the almonds stick and to give the bread a nice color and a bit of gloss, I use soy cream with a bit of turmeric and apricot marmalade (in the traditional recipe they use egg yolk instead).
Instructions
Make sure your beans are properly soaked (approx. 12 h) & cooked (approx. 1h).
240 g of cooked beans correspond to approximately 120 g of dried beans. If you don’t have home cooked beans ready, grab a can of beans!
- Thoroughly blend 240 g white beans with 1.8 dl milk or water until it has a creamy consistency with no pieces of beans left.
- Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Crumble the yeast and mix in.
- Add the bean mixture and stir a bit with a spatula to make everything stick together. Cut the butter into cubes and add them too. Knead everything into a soft, smooth dough for about 12–15 minutes by hand. If you use a food processor, 10 minutes is enough. The longer and better you knead the dough, the fluffier it will be in the end.
- Cover and let rise at room temperature for about 1–2 hours until the dough has doubled.
- Weigh out 8 portions of approx. 80 g each and shape them into balls. Put 1 bean in one of the balls. Form a large ball from the remaining dough, place on a baking tray lined with baking paper, spread the small balls evenly around it (it should look like a flower), cover and let rise again at room temperature for at least 30 minutes (better for 1h).
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Brush the dough with soy cream or a bit of oil and sprinkle coarse sugar on the small pieces and some sliced almonds on the large piece in the middle.
- Bake for about 25–30 minutes in the lower half of the oven preheated to 180 degrees.
- Take out, cool on a rack.