Why Is Potato Bread Yellow?

Potato bread is a delicious bread variety that's moist, fluffy, slightly sweet, and usually yellow. Potato bread dough is often made into rolls and buns and then used as a delicious way to elevate sandwiches. You can even try it out as your bread of choice the next time you make an egg salad sandwich. Mashed potatoes are the secret to the moisture and fluffiness in this bread, but what is it that gives potato bread its distinctive yellow color? The answer isn't cut and dry, as there are many reasons why your potato bread might be yellow.

There are quite a few ingredients that can affect the color of potato bread, but typically there are four that may contribute to the yellow color: eggs, potatoes, artificial food colorings, and natural food dyes. Thankfully for many people who try to avoid artificial colorings, it doesn't appear that most commercial bakeries still use these in their potato bread.

Many basic bread recipes call for water, yeast, sugar, salt, oil, and flour. These recipes don't require eggs. In contrast, most potato bread recipes use eggs, which can affect the color of the bread (thanks to their yellow-orange yolks). Similar to potato bread, brioche and challah – which also use eggs — also often have a slightly yellow color to them. The potatoes in potato bread (as well as the potato variety) also contribute to the yellow color of potato bread. Some types of potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, for example, have a natural yellow color. 

However, many potato recipes also specifically call for russet potatoes, which aren't quite as yellow in color. In this case, the coloring likely comes from other ingredients. Regardless of the type of potato you use, the potatoes will usually be mashed before being added to the recipe, which allows the yellow color to permeate the whole piece of bread.

These days, most bread companies use natural dyes instead of artificial food colorings. Until 2014, the Martin's brand used artificial colorings like FD&C Yellow #5 & #6 to give their bread that yellow color. But then they switched to using natural dyes. 

The potato bread brand Martin's lists turmeric and annatto — spices that can be used as natural dyes in food — as coloring ingredients in its potato bread. Many other brands do the same. For example, Oroweat Country Potato Bread and Stroehmann Dutch Country Premium Potato Bread both use turmeric and annatto. Other brands, like Schmidt Old Tyme Potato Bread, use paprika and turmeric for color. These ingredients are added simply for coloring because when somebody buys potato bread, they expect it to be yellow. Typically, recipes for homemade bread don't include turmeric and annatto. 

It's important to note that these natural colorings are susceptible to sunlight, temperature, and humidity, which means the color might fade over time. Regardless of where the color comes from, it's worth giving potato bread a try next time you need some soft dinner rolls or sandwich bread.