Coconut Milk Sandwich Bread has become one of my most reliable ways to use up cans of coconut milk. This yeast bread recipe calls for exactly 1 cup. The bread, which can easily be made vegan by using coconut oil as the fat, is high rising, light and fluffy.
The original recipe is from the Red Star brand yeast site. I love that it only calls for 2 cups of flour and 1 cup oats and makes an 8x4 inch size loaf. The slices are on the smaller side, but still big enough for sandwiches because of how high the bread rises.
Coconut Milk Sandwich Bread Flavor
As for flavor, you can definitely taste the coconut milk. It's not strong, but the bread has a distinct coconut milk taste to it. It's slightly sweet, but not so sweet it wouldn't work with a BLT or roast beef sandwich. It would be really good with ham. But then again, I like sweet & salty so I'm biased. Oddly enough, the coconut combined with the brown sugar reminds me of wheat flavor. If someone didn't know the ingredients, they might mistake it for a light wheat bread.
Salt, Butter, and Flour Notes
Interestingly, the Red Star recipe only calls for a pinch of salt. The bread definitely needs more, so my version uses ½ teaspoon. I also used softened butter in place of the coconut oil. If you need to make vegan Coconut Milk Sandwich Bread, you can use a neutral oil, but the flavor of the butter was really good. And finally, I did use bread flour rather than all-purpose. I'm sticking with bread flour for now, but I do want to try incorporating some wheat flour just for fun. Expect some updates and variations to this recipe.
One More Note -- The Yeast
I've been testing with instant yeast. Normally I would mix the instant yeast with the dry ingredients and pour in very warm liquid, but I've been using a temperamental yeast I bought in bulk and dissolving it in water to be sure it works. If you are adding the yeast to the dry ingredients as is normal with instant yeast, the rise time may vary. One thing I've learned with yeast bread making is you need to use the rising time as a guide and let the dough do it's thing. This one should double.
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Recipe
Coconut Milk Sandwich Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup coconut milk full fat type from a can
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar packed
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup rolled oats 80 grams
- 2 cups bread flour 270 grams, plus a little more as needed
- 3 tablespoons Very soft unsalted butter 42 grams
- Additional water if needed (probably not)
- Softened butter for greasing pan
Instructions
- In a microwave-safe measuring cup or in a saucepan, heat the coconut milk just until warm (115 degrees F). Put it in the bowl of a stand mixer and add sugar and yeast. Stir well, then stir in salt, oats and flour, followed by the softened butter. Mix until very well blended.
- At this point dough should be very soft. That's okay. Go ahead and put the bowl on the stand mixer and begin kneading with the dough hook. As the dough kneads it should form a ball and cling to the hook. It will still be soft and slick, but should not be sticking to the sides of the bowl. If it is sticking to the sides of the bowl as the hook kneads, then gradually add more flour (though I haven't needed to do this). If for some reason it seems a little dry, add a little more water. Most likely it will be on the soft side.
- Scrape dough into a large greased bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (1 hour). This dough should rise quite a bit the first hour.
- Grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan with softened butter.
- Punch down the dough and shape it into cylinder. Cut into 4 even sections.
- Take one of the sections and press down into a flat rectangle, then roll into a small cylinder. Place in loaf pan. Repeat with remaining sections so that you have 4 little cylinders lined up in your loaf pan. Alternatively, just keep the bread in one big cylinder and skip the part of breaking it into 4.
- Cover with with greased plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until dough has domed about an inch over the pan. This should take about 30 minutes
- When you feel like it’s close to bake time, preheat oven to 375. You are going to bake it at 375 for the first 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 for another 10 for about 30 minutes total.
- Let the bread cool in the pan for about 10 to 15 minutes, then remove and let cool for several hours. The texture will improve as it cools.
T. Martin says
Nice crumb/texture.