Red, white, and blue bread is a festive treat that adds a patriotic touch to your Fourth of July celebrations. This fun-to-make bread features vibrant swirls of color and is perfect for picnics, sandwiches, or simply enjoyed with butter.
Festive Red, White, and Blue Bread
Red, white, and blue bread is a festive, visually striking bread that embodies the spirit of patriotic celebrations, particularly the Fourth of July. This colorful loaf features swirls of vibrant red, white, and blue dough, creating a surprise when sliced. Although it looks complicated, it is merely three layers of colored dough stacked on top of each other, then rolled up and placed in a pan to rise and bake.
Made with a simple yeast-based recipe, it combines the classic flavors of bread with the whimsical fun of colorful food gel. Perfect for sandwiches or enjoyed with butter, this bread not only tastes delightful but also adds a festive touch to picnics and gatherings.
Using Yeast for Red, White, and Blue Bread
This yeast bread recipe starts like many other recipes—allowing the dough to rise. Mixing the ingredients requires minimal effort, as the yeast does the heavy lifting, causing the dough to double in size.
This recipe calls for active dry yeast rather than instant yeast. To ensure your yeast is fresh and active, place it in warm water; if it doesn’t foam, it’s likely too old. You can also use instant yeast in this recipe if you only have active dry yeast. Just remember that instant yeast typically doesn’t need to be activated. However, you might still want to do a yeast test, since fresh yeast is crucial for proper rising.
Preparing the Colors for Red, White and Blue Bread
Once the dough has risen, punch it down and turn it out onto a floured surface. Divide it in half; if it’s sticky, sprinkle a little flour to make it easier to handle.
Each half is then divided into three equal pieces, yielding six pieces in total for two loaves of bread. Each loaf will need 3 pieces (one red, one white, and one blue).
Steps for Coloring Dough
To start the coloring process, follow these steps:
- Put two dough pieces into a clean mixer.
- Add a generous amount of blue food coloring gel.
- Using the dough hook, let the mixer knead the coloring until the dough is uniform in color.
- Remove the blue dough from the mixer and divide it in half again.
- Set aside the two blue dough pieces with the two white dough pieces.
- Clean the mixing bowl and dough hook.
- Place the two remaining uncolored dough pieces into the mixing bowl and add a generous amount of red gel food coloring.
- Turn on the mixer and let the dough hook knead the dough until it has a uniform red color. Depending on your mixer, a lower mixing speed might work better than a higher speed.
- Add a little flour if the dough sticks to the mixing bowl. Sometimes the food coloring will wet it enough that it becomes sticky.
- Once the red color is consistent, remove the dough and divide it into two pieces. You should have two blue, two white, and two red pieces.
Color Notes
- Many blue colors are sky blue and will turn out too light. To get a darker blue, use royal blue or add a bit of purple gel food coloring to a sky-blue color. It is best to add all the colors at once and mix only once, so you don’t overwork the dough.
- You can also hand-knead the color into the dough. It takes longer than the mixer, but it can be therapeutic if you enjoy kneading dough.
Assembling the Bread
For each loaf, roll out one piece of dough from each color into rectangles approximately 5 x 7 inches. Stack the colors with white in the middle, then roll the stack into a log about 8 x 12 inches, keeping the length slightly shorter than your bread pan. Tightly roll the dough along the long edge, then place the log in a pan coated with cooking spray. Repeat this process for the second loaf.
Roll out one piece of each color to a rectangle about 5 x 7 inches each (shown above). You don’t want to roll the length longer than your bread pan, but the width won’t matter as much, as you will see below.
Stack the three colors on top of each other with white in the middle.
Roll the stack of dough to about 8 x 12 inches, slightly shorter than your pan length, but wide enough to roll the dough (shown below).
Carefully roll the long side of the dough into a tight log.
Place the dough “log” into a pan sprayed with cooking spray. Then, repeat the process to make the second dough log for the other pan.
Second Rising
Let the dough rise again until doubled in size, and then bake.
Surprise Inside for Red, White and Blue Bread
The inside of the bread should look like this with rolled colors. Like snowflakes, no two loaves will be exactly alike!
Enjoy Red, White and Blue Bread While it’s Fresh
It is so much fun to cut into this bread and see how your creation turned out. These loaves are great for 4th of July sandwiches or anytime you want a patriotic theme. If you want to make this bread for later use, wrap it well once it has completely cooled and place it in the freezer. Then, thaw it several hours before you want to use it. Be aware that this bread contains no preservatives and therefore has a short shelf life.
Other Bread Colors
Use other colors to make festive bread. You can use different flag colors for your bread, or a combination that matches your occasion or theme.
Other Recipes You Might Enjoy
Click on each name or photo to link to the recipe.
Red White and Blue Bread
Equipment
- (2) 9 x 5-inch or 10 x 5-inch loaf pans
- mixer with dough hook
Ingredients
- 2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees)
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups bread flour
- red gel food coloring
- blue gel food coloring
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add the water, yeast, and 1/8 teaspoon of the sugar. Let it sit for 10 minutes. The mixture will be foamy.
- Add the sugar, salt, oil, and 3 cups of flour, stirring with a spatula between each 1-cup flour addition. Then add the remaining flour by ½ cup, mixing with a mixer and a dough hook between each ½ cup. Stop adding flour when the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and is a little sticky to your finger. If a lot of dough sticks to your finger, add a little more flour. (I used 5 ¼ cups of flour to reach the correct consistency. You may need more or less flour.)
- Once the dough is smooth, not too sticky, and has pulled away from the sides of the mixing bowl, use the mixer to knead the dough for 5 minutes.
- After kneading, oil the inside of a large bowl. Add the bread dough to the bowl and turn it to coat all sides.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place a warm towel on top. Let rise in a warm place for 1 ½ hours or until doubled in size. Wash the mixer and dough hook.
- Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans with cooking spray. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a floured surface. Divide it into two pieces. Then divide each piece into three pieces.
- Of the six pieces of the same-sized dough, set aside two for later use.
- Place two pieces of dough into the mixing bowl. Add a generous amount of blue gel food coloring. Using the dough hook, knead until the blue gel coloring is distributed evenly throughout the dough. Add a little flour if needed so the dough is not too sticky.
- Remove the blue dough from the mixing bowl, divide it in half again, and set it aside.
- Clean the mixing bowl and dough hook. Place two more dough pieces into the mixing bowl, and then add a generous amount of red gel food coloring to the dough. Use the dough hook to knead the dough until it is red. Use extra flour if needed to keep the dough from being too sticky.
- Remove the red dough from the mixing bowl and divide it into 2 equal portions.
- Get one red piece of dough, one white, and one blue. Using a rolling pin, separately roll each dough piece to approximately 7 x 5 inches.
- Stack the rolled dough pieces together in this order for a blue outer crust: blue, white, and red. The bottom color of the stack will determine which color is on the outside of the cooked bread. For example, to have a red exterior, stack in this order: red, white, and then blue.
- Use the rolling pin to roll the stacked dough into a rectangle approximately 8 x 12 inches.
- Starting on the long (12-inch) side, use your fingers to roll up the dough into a log. Place the dough log into a greased baking pan.
- Repeat the process for the other three pieces of dough and place the rolled-up log into the other bread pan.
- Use cooking spray to grease two pieces of plastic wrap, then place one over each pan. Cover the pans with a warm towel and let them sit for 1 hour to rise again.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned on top.
- Cool the bread in the pans for 5-10 minutes, and then turn them out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Brush butter on top of each loaf.