Soft Rainbow Sandwich Bread

This is a really fun bread for school lunches and anything that your kids like that includes bread!  

I just took a very good bread recipe and made it into a RAINBOW BREAD RECIPE; my process tutorial is below with the recipe for this great bread (even without the awesome colors).

The recipe makes 2 loaves and is for a basic very soft white bread that could easily be changed to a wheat bread {just use 3 cups wheat flour and 3 cups white flour in place of the 6 cups white flour}.  

Its actually perfect for sandwiches because it stays soft {I wrapped one loaf in press & seal wrap and foil and froze it for later and the other loaf I just put in a gallon sized ziplock bag} and is easy to slice into normal sandwich bread thickness.  I found the original recipe here.

This bread also makes great toast, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Yum!

Ingredients to Make 2 Loaves:

-2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees)

-2/3 cup sugar

-1 1/2 tsp salt

-1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

-6 cups flour

-1 1/2 tbsp yeast

-food coloring

Process: {If you don't have a bread-maker you can visit the original recipe page to see the manual process.}

1. Combine the ingredients (except the food coloring) in your bread-maker pan in the order listed.

2. Set bread-maker to dough setting and let the bread-maker do it's thing.

3. Once the dough is finished, remove the dough from the pan onto a lightly floured surface.

4. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, using a dough scraper or knife {just eyeball it}.

5. I placed each piece in a bowl because I had intended on mixing in the coloring be hand in the individual bowls.

6. Mix in the food coloring to each dough ball to get the colors of the rainbow; since the food coloring is liquid you will probably need to mix in a bit more flour with the coloring to keep a nice, not too sticky dough {make sure you keep them separate and you probably don't want to set them on your counter, they may stain it with the colors}:
RED: red food coloring
ORANGE: a combination of red and yellow food coloring
YELLOW: yellow food coloring
GREEN: most basic packages of food coloring have green in them, although if yours doesn't mix a combination of yellow and blue
BLUE: blue food coloring
VIOLET/PURPLE: a combination of red and blue food coloring

I started with the red and it took me a while to get the color mixed well and this is what my hand looked like!

Yes, my nails are painted red and they look very close to the color of my fingers!

After getting a red hand I decided maybe using my standing mixer with the dough hook would be a better idea; and it was a lot easier and I didn't end up with multicolored hands.

I mixed the yellow first since it is the lightest color and I didn't want to have to wash the bowl between colors.

Then orange, this is what it looked like while mixing.  I found that mixing on high (10) worked best and make sure you love the arm down so it doesn't bounce around.

I went on to then mix the green, blue and lastly the violet.

This is what my mixing bowl looked like when I was finished...

This is what the awesome dough pieces looked like...

7. To assemble the RAINBOW, lightly grease your work surface {I like this better than adding more flour} and your rolling pin.
8. Roll the red out to a roughly 11 x 14 inch rectangle, then place it on another greased surface {I used a 11 x 14 inch cutting board}

9. Repeat the rolling process for all other colors (oil surface and rolling pin before each color to prevent sticking); layering them on top of each other in the order of the rainbow. {Stretch as needed to make them as close to the same size as you can; the oil makes them easy to move if needed.}

1st: Red
2nd: Orange
3rd: Yellow
4th: Green
5th: Blue
6th: Violet
* If you want the violet on the outside you can reverse the layering order.

This is what mine looked like once I had all of the colors layered...

10. Remove dough layers from the cutting board onto greased counter top.  
11. Roll the dough to out into a larger rectangle; sorry I didn't measure but I think it was about 1/2 inch thick.

12. Use a dough scraper or pizza cutter to cut the rectangle in half.

13. Grease 2 (9 x 5) loaf pans very well.
14. Carefully roll each rectangle into a "log".

15. Place the dough rolls in the prepared loaf pans.  

16. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
17. Place loaf pans on the top of the oven, cover with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rise about 30-45 minutes (the heat from the preheating oven will help the dough rise).

This is what my loaves looked like just before I put them in the oven {I didn't think they rose much, but I was okay with that.}

18. Bake loaves in preheated oven for about 30 minutes.

This is what they looked like when I removed them from the oven; they definitely rose more!

19. Wait 5-10 minutes and remove bread from pans, place on wire rack to cool completely (cool completely before cutting, to be able to cut nice slices).

This loaf didn't come out of the pan very easily, but the inside still looks great!

Getting ready for sandwiches.

Yum!  Big Mr. J's sandwich for his school lunch!  He loved it and all of his friends asked for the recipe so that their moms can make it for them. :D

Enjoy!