Our Vegan Easter Peeps Bread Rolls will add color and whimsy to your Easter Weekend table!
Don’t you just love it when one of your more hair-brained ideas pans out?! While perusing the interwebs for bread-baking inspiration, we came across various bird-haped bread recipes. Easter Sunday is upon us, so we immediately thought: Peeps! For the uninitiated, Peeps are brightly colored, sugar-coated marshmallows shaped like baby birds. They’re sold here in the U.S. every Easter.
We thought it would be fun to add superfood powders and food coloring to our bread roll recipe and shape our rolls to look like Peeps— just in time for Easter. Our rolls are sweetened with maple syrup and flavored with a combination of lemon zest and juice.
💡 Tips
If you think these Vegan Easter Peeps Bread Rolls are hard to make, think again! If you can tie your shoelaces, you can make these bread rolls.
To color our bread rolls, we used a combination of superfood color powders and food coloring. We used beetroot powder for red, turmeric for yellow, matcha powder for green, a blended butterfly pea and spirulina powder for blue, and purple sweet potato powder for purple. (Real Talk: We wanted to exclusively use superfood color powders, but our bag of Suncore Orange Carrot Powder wasn’t super pigmented. We used orange food coloring instead).
The brands of superfood powders we used are: Suncore, Raw Nice, and Unicorn Superfood. We bought our powders on Amazon. Depending on how pigmented your powders are, you will need to use between ½ teaspoon to 2 tsp. For example, we only needed to use ½ teaspoon of turmeric but needed 2 teaspoon of purple sweet potato powder to achieve the colors we wanted. Note that these powders won’t give your bread rolls any noticeable flavor.
🍞 Shaping the Bread Rolls:
- After making your dough, divide it into six pieces. Then knead in six different superfood color powders and/or food coloring. Make sure to wash your hands and work surface between colors.
- After letting the gluten relax for 15 minutes, divide each of your six dough pieces in half (for a total of 12 pieces).
- Roll the pieces into 12-inch logs and tie them each into a knot. The end inside the knot hole will be the baby bird’s face; pinch that end of the knot to create a beak. The end outside the knot will be the baby bird’s backside; press down that end with a fork to create a feathered tail.
- Brush your birds with plant milk and apply black sesame seeds for the eyes. Voilà!
This tutorial on shaping the bread rolls may be helpful.
Check out the pictures below of our fresh-out-the-oven Peeps rolls! As you can see, the colors do fade a bit after baking. But we still think our little baby birds are still adorable.
Happy Easter, everyone!
Love,
Val & Mani
🎉 DID YOU MAKE OUR VEGAN PEEPS BREAD ROLLS?
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💕 MORE VEGAN BAKING RECIPES YOU’LL LOVE
👩🏽🍳 RECIPE
Vegan Peeps Bread Rolls
Ingredients
- 192 mL plant milk ¾ cup + 128 mL plant milk (½ cup), divided, plus more for brushing
- 58 g plant butter 4 tbsp
- 9 g dry active yeast 2 ¼ tsp
- 5 g salt 1 tsp
- 73 mL maple syrup ⅓ cup
- 480 g 4 cups AP flour, plus additional 60 g (½ cup) set aside for kneading
- 2 ½ teaspoon fresh rosemary minced
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 28 g 2 tablespoon lemon juice
- Drizzle of olive oil
- ½ teaspoon to 2 teaspoon each of purple sweet potato powder matcha powder, turmeric, beetroot powder, and a blended butterfly pea and spirulina powder
- 1-3 drops of orange food coloring
- 1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
Instructions
- Combine milk (192 mL) and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Warm until butter is melted—about 3 to 4 minutes; remove pan from heat to cool.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, dissolve yeast in remaining 128 mL milk that has been warmed (no hotter than 110°F, or it’ll kill your yeast). Set aside until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam—about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Measure out 480 g AP flour. Measure out an additional 60 g AP flour and set aside for kneading. Combine the 480 g AP flour with yeast mixture, maple syrup, lemon juice/zest, salt, and milk mixture (ensure milk mixture is no hotter than 110°F) in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix on low until no dry spots remain.
- Stir the remaining 60 g AP flour, 2 tablespoon at time, mixing well after each addition. Continue adding flour until a firm dough forms that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. (Note: You may not need to add all of the 60 g of flour). Knead on medium until dough is elastic and soft but still tacky—about 7-10 minutes.
- Transfer dough to a clean bowl drizzled with olive oil. Turn the dough over a few times in the bowl to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with a silicone lid or plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size—about 1 ½ hours. Meanwhile, line two half or one full baking sheet(s) with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- Transfer dough to a work surface and gently punch it down. Then shape into a rectangle about 1-inch thick. Cut into 6 equally-sized pieces. Knead color powders into each piece. You will need to add between ½ teaspoon to 2 teaspoon of color, depending on how pigmented each powder is. If using food coloring, you will need to add 1-3 drops. Then divide each piece into 2 (for a total of 12 pieces). Shape each piece into balls and arrange them on the prepared baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and let gluten relax for 15 minutes.
- Shape the rolls: On your work surface, roll each piece into a 12-inch log. Tie the log into a loose knot. The end inside the knot hole will be the baby bird’s face; pinch that end of the knot to create a beak. The end outside the knot will be the baby bird’s backside; press down that end with a fork to create a feathered tail. Brush each bird with plant milk and apply sesame seeds for eyes. Return each finished bird to the baking sheet and cover to prevent them from drying out.
- Arrange the rolls on the prepared baking sheet(s) spaced 2 inches apart. Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled—about 20 to 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C).
- Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Notes
- To color our bread rolls, we used a combination of superfood color powders and food coloring. We used beetroot powder for red, turmeric for yellow, matcha powder for green, a blended butterfly pea and spirulina powder for blue, and purple sweet potato powder for purple. We also used 2-3 drops of orange food coloring.
- The brands of superfood powders we used are: Suncore, Raw Nice, and Unicorn Superfood. Depending on how pigmented your powders are, you will need to use between ½ teaspoon to 2 tsp. For example, we only needed to use ½ teaspoon of turmeric but needed 2 teaspoon of purple sweet potato powder to achieve the colors we wanted. Note that these powders won’t give your bread rolls any noticeable flavor.
- Also note that the colors will fade a bit after baking. But we still think our little baby birds are still adorable.
These are adorable. What a creative recipe,.