What's Genny For?

Rainbow Bread

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
— Genesis 9:13-15 (NIV)

Two days ago Lilith of House Martell shared an interesting recipe with me: Rainbow Bread!! What a fun reminder of Yahweh's promise! My 7-year-old, D, and I were intrigued and decided to try it out.

We gathered our ingredients:

1 cup milk + 1 egg yolk
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 and 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 and 1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast
1 and 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons salt
Red, yellow, green, and blue food coloring

I used brown sugar because I was out of white.

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Step 1: In a small, microwave safe bowl, whisk milk and eggs yolk together. Microwave 30 seconds. Set aside.

Step 2: In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, and yeast.

This is where I messed up. I was trying to soften frozen butter in our nukerwave and, spacing out, told D to add the flour into the milk/yolk mixture BEFORE warming it. Arg! I ended up activating the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water and adding that to the flour/milk yolk.

Step 3: Add milk mixture, butter, and salt and stir to combine. Knead dough until it comes together and is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Step 4: Divide dough into 5 equal pieces; place each piece in a small bowl and cover with tea towel.

Step 5: Remove one piece and place it on plastic cutting board (or any surface you're willing to cover with food coloring). Add several drops of food coloring. Use gloves to keep dye off your hands and knead food coloring into dough. (This takes time — be patient and it will come together!)

The "few drops" turned into about 50. And instead of kneading on a board, we kneaded each piece in its small bowl.

Step 6: Shape dough into bowl. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough, dying each a different color (red + blue = purple), being sure to wash your gloves/hands and your work surface between each color.

Step 7: Cover bowls with tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 and 1/2 - 2 hours.

Step 8: When dough is risen, punch it down. Remove red dough and roll it out on lightly floured surface into an 8" x 4" rectangle.

Roll out yellow piece, same as red. Place it on top of red piece. Repeat with green, then blue, then purple until you have a stack.

Step 9: Roll dough tightly from short end into loaf. Place loaf into lightly greased 9" x 5" loaf pan. Cover with tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Step 10: Heat oven to 375°F. Uncover dough and bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes.

Step 11: Remove loaf from pan, butter the top, and let it cool on cooling rack before slicing.


I didn't make the red layer big enough and all the other colors "broke" through on one side. Next time I would roll the red out bigger than the other colors.

This bread tasted like normal bread. We thought about making French Toast with it but I got lazy. Instead, the minions kids jammed up their pieces and et'em up!

WARNING: Be careful when kneading the food coloring into the dough. I accidentally squirted blue/red dye out of the dough and onto my foot! We also ended up with red on the floor (and the bottom of my foot...sigh) when D dropped the food coloring lid! Thankfully it was wiped up from the floor easily. My foot, on the other hand, is horribly stained!

Although it was a slightly messy procedure, this bread truly was fun to make. We're thinking of tweaking the design for St. Paddy's Day next year...

If you try this recipe out, let me know how it turns out. And thanks again for the recipe link, Lilli!