Learning to bake your own bread is a good idea, as you can make small loaves (to avoid bread waste) and avoid palm oil and plastic packaging. This simple seeded loaf for bread machines only needs a few ingredients. Just use Doves Farm seedhouse bread flour and quick yeast, then leave to cool on a wire rack and serve with Flora vegan butter (no palm oil).
Keep fresh dough away from young children & pets (due to bread dough, garlic, onion, dried fruit, salt). Read more on food safety for people & pets.
Don’t give leftover stale/mouldy/crusty bread to garden birds or wildfowl (due to salt again, also fat can smear on feathers, affecting waterproofing/insulation.
Lakeland compact breadmaker costs around £60, has great reviews and makes a 1lb loaf (it also has settings to make pizza dough and homemade rolls). It even has a delay start feature, so bread is ready just at the right time.
If buying any small electrical appliance, the law says the store that sells it has to legally take back old appliances for recycling (at no cost to you).
A Few Simple Homemade Bread Recipes
This 5-ingredient homemade bread recipe (Broke Bank Vegan) is a good starter recipe, if you fancy making your own bread. All you need is good flour, rapeseed or sunflower oil, lukewarm water, a little cane sugar and instant yeast. Let dough rise in a low-temperature oven (or InstantPot). Use a serrated knife to carve and serve with Flora vegan butter.
Doves Farm is an organic flour company that has several simple vegan bread recipes, if you like to make your own loaves. The recipe page includes information on how to make:
- Wholemeal Spelt Air-Fryer Bread
- Heritage Seeded Sourdough Loaf
- Air-fryer Loaves (white or wholemeal)
- Simple Machine Loaves
- No Knead Overnight Bread
- Malthouse Bread Rolls
- Soda Bread
- Rye Bread & Scones
- 2-Hour Wholemeal Bread
- Breadsticks
- Chapati Flatbreads
- Focaccia & Ciabatta
This 5-ingredient soda bread (The Veg Space) is Irish-inspired. It’s easier to make than most bread as you don’t need to knead it and it has no yeast. This replaces the traditional ingredients with vegan milk and yoghurt to make a plant-based buttermilk.
A Book of Simple Vegan Bread Recipes
The Vegan Bread Machine Cookbook is a book of 65 simple recipes, if you invest in a bread machine. It’s good to bake your own bread, but most people will only do this, with the added simplicity of a machine, to avoid kneading and proving the dough.
With this book, there’s no need to buy expensive artisan breads, instead just bake your own bakery-quality treats. Following on from Shane’s debut book on how to bake homemade bread, this book takes this to a simpler level, with recipes to inspire you to dig out your bread-maker, or pop to the shop to buy one, with recipes that won’t leave it gathering dust in the cupboard. Recipes include:
- White or Wholewheat Sandwich Loaf
- Rapid-rise White Bread
- Sprouted Wheat Bread
- Jalapeno ‘Cheese’ Bread (above)
- Oatmeal Bread with Sunflower Seeds
- Rosemary & Thyme Gluten-Free Bread
- Speedy Herb Focaccia
- Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls
- Walnut Cranberry Artisan Loaf
- Celebration Challah
- Panettone Christmas bread
You’ll also find expert tips on how to get the best performance from your bread machine, especially when working with vegan ingredients. Plus tips on how to store and freeze your homemade bread.
Shane Martin is a cook, writer and photographer whose mission is to share easy vegan recipes. He became interested in sharing recipes, after he took time off as a Nashville songwriter to address obesity and other health concerns. He is the main cook in the household that he shares with his wife and five children in Mississippi, USA.
Pretty Breathable Reusable Bread Bags
Storing bread in plastic bags is not good, as bread just sweats. Battle Green organic cotton bread bag can easily handle a large loaf and is wrapped in a recycled card ‘belly band’. The GOTS organic cotton license number appears on the inside label, and the bag uses eco dyes, made by workers who get paid and treated fairly.
Simple Recipes for Homemade Quick Breads
Quick breads are simpler to make than real bread, as they don’t use yeast. They aren’t really breads, they are more cakes. Here are a few nice simple plant-based recipes to try. Eat them alone or with a proper pot of tea! Try this Apple loaf (Rainbow Nourishments)
Anthea’s Carrot Loaf Cake is made with warming spices and brown sugar.
Gingerbread cake (Ela Vegan) is made with warming spices can also be turned into muffins, just pop batter into reusable silicone cupcake cases.
This banana cake recipe (The Veg Space) is really easy to make. A great way to use up over-ripe black spotted bananas.
This blueberry banana bread (Ela Vegan) contains many fresh berries. The natural dye is from the blueberries, nothing artificial.
This homemade courgette bread (Rainbow Nourishments) is nice stuffed with vegan chocolate chips (Plamil is a good brand in paper packs, or sub with walnuts or pecans).
Related to squash, courgettes are used for ratatouille (if not harvested, they grow into marrows). Avoid ones that are wrinkled or have yellow skin or black spots. Store in the fridge. Choose Choose organic to avoid cross-pollinated seed batches that carry a toxin (Tim Dowling writes how he poisoned himself with homegrown courgettes).
If you’re a choccy-holic, also try Anthea’s recipe for Chocolate Courgette Bread, which unlike the above recipe, has more chocolate than courgette!
