Vegan Coconut Pandan Bread Swirl

Vegan Coconut Pandan Bread Swirl

4.34 from 3 votes

Course: Bread

Cuisine: Asian

Prep Time: 45

Cook Time: 45

Rest Time: 2 30

Total Time: 4

Servings: 16 slices

Calories: 129kcal

Author: Kelly

Cost: $0.14 per slice

This vegan pandan bread loaf has a super tender crumb thanks to tangzhong and coconut cream. The homemade pandan extract provides a soft fragrance.

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US Imperial (Cups) - Metric (Grams)

Equipment

Stand mixer (with paddle attachment and dough hook attachment)
2 medium bowls
1 loaf pan ((sized anywhere between 8×4 to 9×5))

Ingredients

Tangzhong (Water Roux)

½ cup water (120g)
2 tbsp all purpose flour or bread flour (25g)

Pandan Bread Dough

1 tsp active dry yeast (3g, roughly 1/2 packet)
¼ cup granulated sugar (50g)
2 ½ cups bread flour aka hard flour (325g)
¾ cup coconut cream (180g, or just under half a can)
1 tsp fine salt (6g)
2 tbsp Homemade Pandan Extract (*can sub with 2 tsp storebought pandan extract)

Instructions

Tangzhong

Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp flour to a small saucepan. (See Note 1.) Set on medium-low heat and whisk together.
After a minute or two, the mixture will start thickening. Keep stirring constantly. When it’s thick and gloopy, remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Bread

Once the tangzhong is cool enough to comfortably touch, add it to the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1 tsp yeast, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 ½ cups flour, 3/4 cup coconut cream, and 1 tsp salt.
Using the paddle attachment, mix on medium speed for no more than one minute, just to roughly incorporate the ingredients. (Do not let the dough start forming into a cohesive ball, or else it will be difficult to work in the pandan extract. At this stage, it should be a loose and sticky mess.)
Remove half of the mixture to a separate bowl (see Note 2). Switch to the dough hook attachment and knead the remaining mixture for 10 minutes, using the speed recommended for kneading dough. For KitchenAid this is Speed 2. Then transfer to a different bowl and cover.
Now put the other half of dough that we removed earlier back into the stand mixer bowl. Add the pandan extract to this dough and knead for 10 minutes.
Now you should have two dough balls, one white and one green. Keep both pieces of dough covered, in separate bowls, and leave them in a warm place to rise for 1–1½ hours.
Once the dough balls have nearly doubled in size, put the white dough on a clean working surface. Flatten it slightly into an oblong shape. Turn out the green dough on top of the white one, stretching the edges to completely cover the white dough on the bottom.
Using a rolling pin, roll the layered dough into a long flat strip, pressing down firmly to get rid of air bubbles.
Starting from one of the short ends, roll the dough up into a tight log.
Plop into a lined loaf pan. Cover and let rise again in a warm place, 45 minutes to 1 hour, until dough is 1 inch away from the top of the pan.
Bake at 350 °F for 35 minutes. (If your oven is on the cooler side, you might want to bake an extra 5 minutes to be safe. Or, if you have a food thermometer, the internal temperature of the bread should read at least 190 °F.)

Notes

If you made your own pandan extract following the method here where you pour off the top layer of pandan juice, you can use that discarded light-coloured juice for making the tangzhong. The light colour means that the final dough turns out white, so you can see the swirl pattern, but will give the bread an extra fragrant whiff of pandan.

The swirl part of this vegan pandan bread is optional. It makes for a fun visual, but if you choose to leave it, just skip Step 3 to keep the dough in one piece for a homogenous colour all through.

Nutrition