In honor of St. Patrick’s day and the smell of Spring in the air, I decided I really wanted to try something new and colorful and then I saw this idea for rainbow bread. Perfect!
The process of making rainbow bread is a little more intense because you have to knead multiple colors into your dough. But it’s totally worth it when your kids get so excited and can’t get enough of your bread.
I used this Whole Wheat Bread recipe–it’s my favorite homemade bread. The reason this bread is a great option for rainbow bread is that it only has to rise once and since there is a little extra work involved, that helps move the process along. However, I bet you could use your favorite bread recipe and make it work, too. Back to rainbow bread! When making the bread, I let it start to pull away from the sides and kneaded for just a minute because I knew that I was going to be kneading in the food coloring. Flour your hands, pull the dough out and separate into 5 equal parts and knead in 5 different colors of your choice. You will want the colors to be mixed in really well! This takes a great deal of effort and some muscle. Which means this can totally count for your workout of the day!
If you make a full batch you can get 4 loaves. Divide each color into 4 equal parts so you so that you will have four rainbow loaves, each with five colors. Take the dough balls for the first loaf and roll them into a 8 x 5 rectangular shape, one at a time.
Lay them on top of each other.
If you want more colorful swirls, you will want to roll the dough thinner. Once they are all rolled out and stacked on top of each other, tightly roll them together. It needs to be tight so that there are no air bubbles when it is rising and baking.
After tightly rolling it together, place it in the bread pan, cover and let rise until doubled.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350. After it cools completely, cut off a slice and show off your sweet rainbow bread to your family! They will think that it’s really special and love eating it just because it looks cool. Then they’ll love it even more because it is so delicious.
For a delicious rainbow breakfast make french toast with blueberries. For lunch make grilled cheese… if you use a cookie cutter you can make rainbow fish. Careful, don’t make it too fun or your kids will just play with it! True story.
Here are some more fun food ideas:
