VEGAN BREADS - Index

[I'm still working on this post, putting in the links to all the breads is time-consuming. If there is no link attached to the bread you're interested in, simply put it in the search box, and you should be directed to the recipe.]

Index of vegan breads:

Apfel kuchen (German apple cake)

Bagels

Bara brith

Belgian buns

Bialys

Bread bowls (from these to trenchers)

Calzone (soda bread calzone) baked in a chiminea

Canapés

Carta da musica

Chelsea buns (undercover)

Chocolate and banana bread 

Chocolate and beetroot bread

Chocolate and cherry bread

Chocolate loaf

Chocolate twist

Christmas loaf

Ciabatta

Cloche method

Cornbread

Crackers – poppy and sesame seeds

Creole soda bread

Croissants

Danish pastries

Devonshire splits

Doughnuts

Dumplings

Farthing buns

Focaccia

Fougasse

Fougassette

Fruit braid

Fruit loaf

Garlic batons

Grissini

Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns

Hungarian chocolate bread

Iced buns

Jam tart

Lardy cake

Loaves

Marzipan and apple tartlets

Mushroom en croute

Naans

Pane casereccio

Pane cioccolato (Italian chocolate bread)

Pane frattau

Pannetonne

Parathas

Pasties

Peshwari naan

Petit pain au chocolat

Pierogis

Pies (Thai, ratatouille, apple)

Pikelets

Pirozkhis

Pittas

Pizza (2 red pizzas)

Pretzels

Quick breads

Reindeer droppings

Rolls

Schiacciatta con l’uva

Soda bread

Sourdough

Spelt loaf

Spicy fruit buns

Spicy fruit naan

Swedish tea ring

Tempura

Trenchers

Yum yums

ALL bread should be vegan - that is, made with flour, salt (which can be omitted), yeast and water. That's it!

That's Real Bread as defined by the Real Bread Campaign (RBC).

"Real Bread is that made without the use of processing aids or any other artificial additives."

"Additional ingredients are great as long as they are natural...and themselves contain no artificial additives."

I teach breadmaking - in a variety of settings and to all manner of groups - that's my job. Necessarily, this involves me in making bread that is not vegan. It's always vegetarian, however. Of course, all the breads that I make for my own consumption are vegan. 

Unfortunately, my wife is a confirmed omnivore - when I announced I was going to be a vegetarian, her response was, "Don't be so bloody silly!" :) "And what about our Sunday roast chicken? And Christmas - what about our turkey?" (This was in November, 2001.) 

I'm a man of peace and compromise, so for five weeks I was vegetarian during the week and had roast chicken on the Sunday. I had the turkey at Christmas and I have been a vegetarian ever since - becoming a vegan around 2004.

So, not all of this blog is vegan or vegetarian - but the point of this post is to steer my fellow vegans away from any recipes that aren't vegan.

In this post I want to emphasise and feature - and link to - all the breads I make that are vegan - the great majority.

I want to look at the different 'natural' ingredients that recipes often call for, that aren't vegan, and, either discount them altogether, or suggest alternatives:

Eggs. Eggs are completely unnecessary in bread - and there is no necessity  for any egg replacement. None! Ever!

As an aside, eggs (or egg replacements) are also unnecessary in:
Pancakes
Cakes
Pasta 
Pastry

Butter. Where ever you see this in a recipe, replace with a similar amount of olive oil. (I use Lidl's - or Aldi's - Extra Virgin Olive Oil which is cheap, and comes high in the Which? Magazine tests.) But as a general rule, you can use as much or as little as you choose.  Olive oil adds flavour and helps keep the bread fresh for longer. Other vegetable oils don't seem to add much to bread - with the exception of the sunflower oil in which dried tomatoes have been soaked. When this oil is added to a pizza dough, it makes a wonderful crust - crisp, a little like short-crust pastry!

Cheese. This is used mainly as a pizza topping, in breadmaking - and, as you'll see, there are so many toppings that can be used in its place. Not as a cheese replacement, but as flavoursome toppings in their own right. Otherwise, in cheese rolls for instance, vegan cheese or other tasty alternatives can be used.

Meats of all sorts. Not even in mincemeat! :) (Although in the US some still quaintly believe that this Christmas-associated ingredient should contain meat! Ugh!) Not necessary in any shape or form.

Home made vegan chocolate spread

I've been meaning to have a go at this for ages. So often I make a bread with chocolate spread - and I can't eat it because it isn't vegan.


I googled several recipes and got an idea of what I could use. Most were about making a nutella-type spread, using a food processor - which I don't have, but it gave me the basis. In the end, by adding a bit of this and a bit of that, I ended up with these ingredients:

100g soya cream
50g olive oil
55g cocoa powder
55g icing sugar

I blitzed the cream and oil together and added most of the dry ingredients - then I stirred in a dessertspoon of each until I finished up with a thick spread. I've got this in a jar and we'll see how much of this I use in the morning.


I used just over half in making a chocolate and cherry swirl loaf [recipe and pics to come].


I took the jar into work the next day and invited three friends to taste the spread. Two of them said that while it was very nice, there was an underlying 'off-flavour' they detected, which I put down to the olive oil. However, when the other friend - a chef - tasted it, she only said it was too chocolaty for her.


Both these problems are easily solved - firstly by using a bland vegetable oil, such as sunflower oil instead of the olive oil, and secondly by adjusting the amount of cocoa powder.


It's now firmly established in my repertoire - and I shall play with the ingredients no doubt every time I make it.


One thing I will try next time is to add some ground almonds I found lurking in the cupboard - then it will be my own version of nutella!