Easy Crusty Vegan Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret of crusty bread? ›

The best way to brown and crisp your bread's bottom crust – as well as enhance its rise – is to bake it on a preheated pizza stone or baking steel. The stone or steel, super-hot from your oven's heat, delivers a jolt of that heat to the loaf, causing it to rise quickly.

Before you start baking the bread, make sure that your oven and the form/stone on which you'll bake the bread are well heated. Bake the bread at high temperature, around 260/270°C, for the first 15 minutes of the baking process so that the crust and its beautiful golden color start developing quickly on the surface.

Simply put, you have to control the temperature of the bread. Allowing ample time for your bread dough to rise and the yeast to form will create the holes in the bread that give it a lighter texture. Letting your dough get puffy and grow before it goes into the oven is critical.

However, many brands will add honey for sweetness, or eggs for leavening and protein content. The wheat bread best for vegans is made with whole-wheat flour and sticks to the original four ingredients – flour, water, yeast, and salt – with no other additives or animal products.

Large crusty loaves can be stored unwrapped (to preserve their crispy crust) at room temperature for a day or so, cut side down on the counter. For optimum long-term storage (longer than a couple of days), wrap bread in single-day portions and freeze.

As the loaf cools, any moisture which is left in the loaf escapes through the crust as steam and this is what causes the softening.

Commercial bread is softer due to the steam process used by bakeries, which is made to keep bread hydrated and fresh. Use cold water in a pan and put it on a rack beneath your bread to create steam.

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

Sugar: Not only does it sweeten the bread, but sugar also retains moisture. This means that adding sugar can indeed make bread softer. Baking Soda: When added, especially in recipes with acidic ingredients, it can make bread soft and spongy.

A few types of bread that are commonly vegan include pita, ciabatta, and focaccia. Veganism refers to a way of living that attempts to minimize animal exploitation and cruelty. For this reason, vegans aim to exclude all foods containing meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and honey from their diet ( 1 ).

What is a healthy vegan bread? ›

Food for Life's Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread is the most popular. It takes six grains: wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and combines them. When they are sprouted, great things take place. A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs.

Vegan milks are made from a wide assortment of beans, nuts, seeds, and grains. The most popular varieties are soy milk, almond milk, and oat milk. Other popular brands are made from coconuts, peas, cashews, hazelnuts, or rice.

There are many who like the crunchy crust as it gives a different experience for the teeth and the palette. The inside which is too soft may not taste as good as the crust when mixing with gravy, butter or jam for example. Even without any additional stuff, a hot bread crust is yummy!

Scientific studies have investigated whether the crusts of bread contain more nutrients than the moist, springy interior. The short answer is: yes, bread crusts do contain more nutrients. The reason for this is that the baking process causes the exterior of the bread to become firmer and more browned.

Usually it's gluten (a product of the protein in flour) that determines bread's texture. Bread where gluten plays a prominent role will be chewier. When the gluten level is lower, or when gluten is tamed by the addition of “softeners” like milk, butter, eggs, or oil, the bread will be more tender.

Salt—Salt adds flavor to breads and helps produce bread with a fine texture and grain. When too much is used, it can slow down the action of yeast. Fat—Often called "shortening" because it lubricates the strands of gluten and makes them break easily. The more fat, the more tender or "shorter" the bread.