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I’ve celebrated Pride Month for MANY years but this is the first time that I’m celebrating it as a FULLY OUT gay woman and that feels really good :)
As part of that celebration, I’m posting a NEW rainbow themed recipe every single week this year starting with this tie-dye RAINBOW bread. Isn’t she beautiful!?:
Did you ever have bread like this as a kid? I remember seeing it at Kroger and begging my parents to buy it for me. I always thought it was SO cool. At a certain point in my childhood, I stopped seeing the bread in stores which was obviously very sad.
I’m super glad that I’ve been able to re-create it as an adult :)
The recipe itself is a classic white sandwich bread recipe but with a little food coloring to represent the colors of the rainbow. When I first set out to make this, I thought that it would be pretty difficult. However, besides being a little time consuming to mix in the colors, it’s a super easy recipe!
How to make it
The full written recipe is down in the recipe card but here’s a quick visual overview of how to make it!
Make the dough. It’s a simple and standard yeast dough that comes together either in a stand mixer or in a large bowl by hand.
Let it rise and divide it. Once the dough has done it’s first rise, divide it evenly into 6 pieces. For this recipe, the 6 pieces do not need to be exactly even so don’t stress it too much.
Color the dough. I used gel food dye to color my dough. You add a few squirts individually and then fold the dough together to incorporate the coloring. It can take 3-5 minutes of kneading to properly mix the food dye in.
I suggest using kitchen grade gloves for this so your hands don’t get stained from the dye.
Food dye that I used
I went around with a few different types of food dye for this recipe but decided that GEL FOOD coloring was ultimately the best for this bread. It results in a very vibrant color and is relatively easy to mix into the dough.
THIS is the exact one that I used from Amazon but other food gels would work as well.
See video
Rainbow Bread
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ teaspoon active dry yeast, 1 packet
- 1 cup lukewarm water*
- 1 tablespoon honey*
- 19.5 oz all-purpose flour, about 4 ⅓ cups
- ½ cup lukewarm water
- 1 ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- 2 tablespoons honey*
- ½ tablespoon white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- Gel food coloring, I used red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add in the 1 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of honey, and yeast. Stir gently and allow to sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast. After 10 minutes, there should be foam at the top.
- To the bowl with the yeast mixture, add in the flour, ½ cup of water, sea salt, honey, vinegar, and melted butter. Using the dough hook, turn the stand mixer to low until a dough forms, about a minute. Turn the speed up 1 notch (3 on the stand mixer), and knead the dough for 5 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and cut it into 6 even pieces (it doesn’t need to be exact).
- Working with one section of dough at a time, add a few drops of food coloring to the dough (I highly suggest wearing gloves for this part) and fold the dough over so that the food coloring is in the middle. Add 3 more drops (roughly) and fold the dough over again. Knead the dough for 5 minutes until the food coloring is fully combined and the dough is getting smooth. HERE is a link for how to knead dough. You can also do this in the food process, wiping down any excess food coloring in between colors.
- Repeat this step with the remaining 5 sections of dough. Lightly grease 6 different bowls and place the dough balls in the bowls. Cover and let rise for 1.5-2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Take each dough ball and, on a floured surface, press it out into an oval that’s roughly the length of your dough pan (8×4). Stack the colors on top of each other and press down to kind of seal them together. Roll the dough tightly, starting at one long end, until fully rolled up (see video for reference). Place the dough in a greased 8×4 loaf pan, seem side down, cover and let rise for 1 hour.
- 30 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until the bread is browned on the top and reaches a temperature of about 195 degrees in the center.
- Remove from the oven and let cool before slicing open. Store in an air tight container for up to 5 days and ENJOY!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Holy Rainbows, Batman … this bread is super fun! I got two small but right-sized 8.5×4 loaves out of this recipe — one for our pan son and daughter-in-law, and one for us (because no way was I going to put this much work into a rainbow bread loaf and not keep one for ourselves). It is wonderfully colorful and it tastes so yummy, especially with (vegan) butter and (not vegan) honey on top. I did use the same gel food coloring you recommended and the color is vibrant. Thanks so much for sharing this fun recipe, and all your others as well.
This worked exactly as written, thank you! Decided to make this for pre-pride brunch with friends and it turned out amazing! Recipe was simple and easy to follow and everything turned out as expected. Thank you so much!
Thank you for this! I used to get this at my grocery store around Easter and it’s so simple to do! I’m so glad I came across this!
aww of course! I remember seeing this at the store growing up and being obsessed with it too :)
Thank you for sharing this recipe. It was super easy to make! I added a little bit more honey to it cause I like it a bit sweet. My kids loved it and asked me to make more “magic rainbow bread”. 🤭
I’ve made this twice now and love it. We make it for communion bread for our Pride Sunday. I’d like to make it gluten-free so that those in our congregation who can’t have gluten can partake…. I’m wondering if I should try swaping the flour out for regular 1 to 1 gluten free flour or if I should try gluten-free bread flour? Since this recipe calls for regular flour and not bread flour I wasn’t sure the best swap to try out. Thanks.
honestly I don’t have a ton of experience with gluten free baking. BUT I would think a simple gluten free 1-1 flour should work well!