Home · Recetas · Texturizing · Alballana Brioche

Alballana Brioche

Some recipes are born from a special occasion and end up being much more than that. The Alballana Brioche is one of them. Created by Lorena Criollo, pastry chef and trainer at Valrhona, this brioche was conceived as a celebration of Easter 2026: a seasonal viennoiserie piece where technique and flavour merge in every layer, every slice, every bite.

Vanilla, toasted hazelnut, and apricot. A triad of flavors that becomes a statement of intent about what modern pastry is capable of when technique serves flavour.

The soul of the piece: a vanilla brioche

The foundation of everything is the brioche itself. And a well-executed vanilla brioche is, in its own right, a masterpiece of balance: a tender, layered dough with that warm, deep fragrance that only quality vanilla can provide. It is the perfect starting point for an Easter piece that seeks to evoke warmth, celebration and memory.

Structure of the hazelnut nougatine

One of the most distinctive elements of the Brioche Alballana is its hazelnut nougatine. Nougatine is a classic of French confectionery — a blend of caramel and nuts that, once spread and cooled, delivers that unmistakable, brilliant crunch so prized in high-end pastry.
But integrating nougatine into a pastry poses a significant technical challenge: ensuring that the mixture is evenly distributed, that it does not separate during baking, and that it maintains its structure without losing its identity.

The solution comes with NH Pectin
Pectine NH is a natural-origin gelling agent — derived from citrus peel — particularly valued in pastry for its ability to create firm, glossy and perfectly homogeneous gels in fruit and sugar-based preparations. Its key advantage lies in its thermoreversibility: it can be heated, set and reheated without losing its properties, making it a precision ally in preparations that will go through the oven.

In this nougatine, Pectina NH acts as a binder: it ensures the ingredients are perfectly integrated, prevents the mixture from breaking apart during baking and delivers a final nougatine that holds its shape, cohesion and characteristic crunch.

The apricot filling: fruity freshness that survives the heat

The apricot brings to the Brioche Alballana that acidic, fruity counterpoint that balances the richness of the vanilla and the toasted depth of the hazelnut. But incorporating a fruit filling into a piece that goes into the oven presents one of the greatest challenges in technical pastry: ensuring that the fruit retains its texture, its flavour and its presence under heat.

This is where Gellan Gum comes in, probably the most surprising texturizer for those who discover it for the first time. Gellan Gum is a plant-based gelling agent, with a texture similar to agar-agar but with one property that makes it unique in its category: it withstands baking temperatures without losing its gel structure. While most gelatines melt under heat, Gellan Gum maintains its firmness even inside the oven, making it possible to create bakeable fillings that preserve their shape, their moisture and the full intensity of the original flavour.

Alballana Brioche

Recipe by: Lorena Criollo – Valrhona Pastry Chef Instructor. Recipe calculated for 5 brioches.

Ingredients

Vanilla Brioche
- 500g -
  Pastry flour
- 250g -
  Whole eggs
- 50g -
  UHT whole milk
- 55g -
  Sugar
- 10g -
  Fine salt
- 12g -
  Organic yeast
- 15g - Inverted sugar
- 300g -
  European-style butter
- 4g -
  Vakana Vanilla Pearl – Norohy
Hazelnut Nougatine
- 20g -
  Water
- 90g -
  European-style butter
- 55g - Liquid Glucose DE35/40
- 90g -
  Sugar
- 2g - Pectin NH
- 250g -
  Chopped Piedmont Hazelnuts
Apricot Filling
- 3g -
  Sodium Citrate
- 3g - Gellan gum
- 20g -
  Corn starch
- 110g -
  Sugar
- 565g -
  Flavor Cot and Lido 100% Apricot Purée – Adamance
Assembly and finishing
- CS -
  Azélia 35%
- CS -
  Opalys 33%
- CS -
  Strawberry Inspiration
- CS -
  50% Hazelnut and Cocoa Spread

Prepared by

Vanilla Brioche
1. Make sure the eggs are chilled when you use them.
2. Use the palm of your hand to combine all the ingredients except the butter for approx. 5 minutes.
3. Knead in a stand mixer on second speed for approx. 10 minutes.
4. Gradually add the butter until the dough starts to come away from the edges of the bowl.
5. Once kneading is complete, the dough should be at 75°F (24°C).
6. Leave the dough to rise at room temperature for 2 hours.
7. Knock back the dough and stretch it out onto a baking pan before covering with plastic wrap. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes to kill the remaining yeast.
8. Keep refrigerated.
Hazelnut Nougatine
1. Heat the water, butter and glucose in a saucepan.
2. At 105°F (40°C), add the sugar mixed with the pectin.
3. Bring to a boil, then add the chopped hazelnuts.
4. Immediately spread out the mixture as thinly as possible between 2 sheets.
5. When the nougatine has cooled, cut it into the shapes you want using a cookie cutter.
Apricot Filling
1. Combine the sodium citrate, gellan gum and starch, then blend well with the sugar to distribute evenly.
2. Pour into the fruit purée cooled to 40°F (4°C), then blend to combine well.
3. Heat to 195°F (90°C), stirring constantly, then use immediately (as the gel sets quickly).
Preparation and Finishing
1. Preparation: Make the brioche dough.
2. Nougatine: Prepare the nougatine and, once it has cooled, cut it into 14cm-diameter rounds.
3. Apricot filling: Make the apricot filling. Use approx. 150g to fill a mold with 3.5cm-long half-egg indents, then put the rest into “half-sphere molds” (20g per half-sphere). Freeze and turn out.
4. Making the brioches: Make 11 brioche balls weighing 20g each. Insert apricot half-spheres into 5 of the balls. Arrange the buns in a 16cm ring lined with parchment paper: Put one plain bun in the center, surrounded by the 5 filled buns, then the remaining 5 plain buns between the filled buns.
5. Proofing and baking: Leave to ferment at 82°F (28°C) in 70% humidity for 2 hours. Brush with beaten egg, place the nougatine rounds on top and bake at 320ºF (160ºC) for 15/20 minutes. Spread filling: Leave to cool, then fill the plain brioches with hazelnut spread (5 to 10g).
6. Decorations: Chocolate bunnies: Spread the tempered Azélia milk couverture between 2 guitar sheets, cut it into 4cm disks for the bunny’s body, 1cm for the tail,2cm for the feet and cut the bases of the ears using a lozenge-shaped cookie cutter.
7. Pink parts: Temper and spread out the white couverture mixed with Strawberry Inspiration. Use a smaller lozenge-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the pink ears.
Final Assembly
1. Assemble the ears with the tempered pink couverture, then stick them onto a 4cm Azélia disk. Nose and feet: Use a pastry cone to draw a heart for the nose. Stick the feet to a 4cm base and attach the tail. Finishing for the feet: Use a pastry cone to make 4 dots on the feet, place a square of guitar sheet on top, and press down lightly to flatten.