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This vegan bread is a savory swirl bread with a colorful spiral running through the center. Activated charcoal and blue spirulina naturally color this pretty bread. Bring it to a potluck, picnic, or tea party, and your friends and family will be snapping pictures and sharing it on social media.

This recipe makes 1 loaf of swirl bread (~12 slices).

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Black Dough Recipe
• Blue Dough Recipe
• How To Swirl the Bread
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Video
• Nutritional Information
• Contact Me with Questions
• Similar Recipes

Have you noticed that most of the swirl breads in this life are sweet breads? If you lke kawaii food, you might have browsed around this website. And you probably noticed that I’m obsessed with sweets. So, sweet bread just isn’t gonna cut it. I like my breads to be savory, and I like my sweets to be over the top in the indulgent sweets category. Like I want them to win at least the silver medal in the indulgence olympics.

This bread is for those of you who are looking for a savory swirl bread with a colorful spiral running through the center. This bread doesn’t require an overnight rise, so you can start and finish it in the same day. However, I like to make the bread the day before I want to actually use it for making tea sandwiches. This ensures that it can cool for a proper amount of time before slicing it, and it also helps to alleviate stress (because I have a special ability to create stress in pretty much any situation).

This would be a great holiday bread recipe because you can choose your colors. I’ve made this spiral bread using wilton pink gel color and yellow Color Kitchen natural food coloring swirled together for star and moon shaped tea sandwiches for my sailor moon birthday party. I’ve also made it using activated charcoal and blue spirulina for an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party picnic. (But wouldn’t it also be perfect for a nightmare before christmas tea party?) For other vegan food coloring ideas, check out my list of vegan food coloring.

Ingredients for Naturally Colored Black Bread Dough

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• ¾ teaspoon (4g) yeast
• 1 teaspoon (4g) raw, vegan, or organic sugar
• 7 tablespoons (100g) warm water (100-105°F)
• 1 ¼ cups (175 grams) unbleached bread flour
• ¾ teaspoon (3g) sea salt
• 1 teaspoon (1-2g) activated charcoal powder

How to Make Black Dough for Spiral Swirl Bread

prep time: 15 min | rise time: 60-90 min

Whisk ¾ teaspoon (4g) yeast, 1 teaspoon (4g) vegan sugar, and 7 tablespoons (100g) warm water (100-105°F), and let it rest for 5 minutes, while you measure out remaining ingredients.

Measure or weigh 1 ¼ cups (175 grams) flour, ¾ teaspoon (3g) pink sea salt (or any salt), and 1 teaspoon (1-2g) activated charcoal powder. Black is the only color that only needs a teaspoon of powder. If you’re trying to use superfood powders to make other colors, I recommend using 2-3 teaspoons, depending on the color.

Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.

Knead on low speed (I use the second notch on my stand mixer

• the speed label says 2) until the dough is smooth (no longer than 5 minutes). If the dough is too sticky (if it sticks to your hands), add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, kneading in between each addition of flour to make sure it’s completely mixed in. If you don’t have a stand mixer in your kitchen arsenal, you can mix the dough in a large bowl with a silicone spatula and then knead on an oiled surface (if you avoid oil, use a floured surface).

Coat a large bowl lightly with vegetable oil, and set the dough in the bowl to rise.

Cover the bowl with cling wrap or a kitchen towel.

Rise the dough for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until the size of the dough ball is twice the size that you started with.

Ingredients for Blue Spirulina Bread Dough

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• ¾ teaspoon (4g) yeast
• 1 teaspoon (4g) raw, vegan, or organic sugar
• 7 tablespoons (100g) warm water (100-105°F)
• 1 ¼ cups (175 grams) unbleached bread flour
• ¾ teaspoon (3g) sea salt
• 2 teaspoons (3g) blue spirulina powder

How to Make Blue Spirulina Dough for Spiral Swirl Bread

prep time: 15 min | rise time: 60-90 min

Whisk ¾ teaspoon (4g) yeast, 1 teaspoon (4g) vegan sugar, and 7 tablespoons (100g) warm water (100-105°F), and let it rest for 5 minutes, while you measure out remaining ingredients.

Measure or weigh 1 ¼ cups (175 grams) flour, ¾ teaspoon (3g) pink sea salt (or any salt), and 2 teaspoons (3g) blue spirulina if one of your colors is blue (or green spirulina if you want it to be green). If you’re using pink, red, or purple superfood powders, I recommend using 3 teaspoons.

Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.

Knead on low speed (I use the second notch on my stand mixer

• the speed label says 2) until the dough is smooth (no longer than 5 minutes). If the dough is too sticky (if it sticks to your hands), add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, kneading in between each addition of flour to make sure it’s completely mixed in. If you don’t have a stand mixer in your kitchen arsenal, you can mix the dough in a large bowl with a silicone spatula and then knead on an oiled surface (if you avoid oil, use a floured surface).

Coat a large bowl lightly with vegetable oil, and set the dough in the bowl to rise.

Cover the bowl with cling wrap or a kitchen towel.

Rise the dough for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until the size of the dough ball is twice the size that you started with.

How to Roll the Bread Dough to Make a Spiral

prep time: 15 min | rise time: 90 min | bake time: 40 min

I’ve made the swirl for this bread 2 ways, and both result in a different outcome. One method is to roll 2 rectangles out of each color of dough and alternating the colors to make a stack of the 4 dough layers. The other method is to roll 1 rectangle out of each color of dough, and make a stack of just the 2 layers.

The photos below illustrate the differences in how the swirls turn out with each method, so you can choose the method you prefer. I prefer the swirl in a loaf where you just roll one layer from each color, which is the method I will describe below. If you prefer the swirl in the 4-layer loaf, simply divide each color of dough in half, and roll out 4 rectangles, instead of 2.

Coat a rolling mat lightly with vegetable oil. If you avoid oil, you can skip the oiling step, but it does make the dough slightly more difficult to work with.

Roll the dough rectangles on the rolling mat using a rolling pin.

Fold the edges toward the center if your rectangle looks more like an oval than a rectangle and then roll again.

Set the finished rectangle aside while you roll the next one.

Stack the 2 rectangles on top of eachother.

Roll the dough into a cylinder using your hands, just like you’re rolling cinnamon rolls or pizza rolls.

Coat a 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch loaf pan lightly with vegetable oil. If you avoid oil, you can skip the oiling step, but it will make the bread more difficult to remove from the pan once it’s baked.

Set the bread loaf into the bread pan with the seam on the bottom, and cover it with cling wrap loosely to rise for about an hour or two. You want it expand enough that it’s twice as big as it was when you set it in the pan, and the top of the roll should rise above the top of the bread pan.

Heat the oven to 350°F (175º C) once the loaf is done rising.

Bake for 20 minutes, rotate the bread pan by 180º, and bake for another 20-25 minutes, depending on how hot your oven runs.

Set the bread pan on a cooling rack.

Cool for a few minutes before flipping over and letting the bread fall out of the pan.

Cool the rest of the way on the cooling rack before you slice it.

Slice the bread and make sandwiches for your next picnic, tea party, or other gathering. These were for an Alice in Wonderland themed picnic, but I think this color combo would be good for any Tim Burton themed party.

Ingredient Details and Substitutions

• Flour: I use bread flour, but you can use all-purpose flour if you don’t have bread flour. Or you can always make your own bread flour by whisking 500 grams of all purpose flour with 20 grams of vital wheat gluten.
• Sugar: You can’t omit the sugar in this recipe because it activates the yeast. You can use any number of sugars, as long as they’re vegan: sucanat, coconut sugar, raw sugar, organic sugar, or demurara. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask, but basically, just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok.
• Food Coloring: I used activated charcoal and blue spirulina for this recipe, but I’ve also used gel colors for a brighter bread. If you’re using gel food coloring instead of superfood powders to color your bread, add your gel color to the yeast and water mixture. Look at my entire list of vegan food coloring for both natural and other coloring options.

Video

Here’s a quick video showing how I roll it.

Nutrition Facts

For the info below, I’m assuming that a serving is one slice of bread.

• Servings: 12
• Calories per serving: 97
• Calcium per serving: 5mg
• Cholesterol per serving: 0mg
• Dietary Fiber per serving: <1mg
• Folate per serving: xxxmcg
• Iron per serving: <1mg
• Potassium per serving: 34mg
• Protein per serving: 4g
• Total Carbohydrate per serving: 20g
• Total Fat per serving: 0.3g
• Total Sugars per serving: 0.7g
• Sodium per serving: 279mg

Comments or Questions?

If you make this dairy free bread recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!

Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.

Similar Recipes

For other fun cute bread recipes, you might like my bite-sized burger buns made with activated charcoal, my no-knead focaccia bread decorated to look like a ouija board.

If you prefer an easy sandwich bread recipe, my no-knead rainbow bread can be made any colors you like (or just bread colored, if that’s your thing).

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I mostly cook with organic ingredients, but only specify organic when it’s necessary to ensure the item is vegan.

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