After lots of playing with sourdough, my favorite recipe to date is this: a light, fluffy and perfectly slightly sweet loaf of sliceable sandwich bread! I like to describe it as a “country white bread” that’s just sweet enough with a combination of honey & maple syrup (I use both, but choose one or the other if you like)
It slices beautifully and stores perfectly in the fridge. You can totally keep it at room temp (or in the freezer!) but I’m always a “bread in the fridge” girl to keep it fresher longer.
This uses sourdough starter for the perfect natural yeast that will give a light fluffy beautiful rise, but it really doesn’t taste like sourdough at all. Just tastes like a perfect white bread!
The inspiration for this recipe began with Amber of amberskitchencooks.com
She has so many great sourdough creations, and hers was the first recipe for sandwich bread I found, tried & then built my own version from! Highly recommend her site for more sourdough inspo!
Use it for sandwiches, toast, or just slather it up with softened butter and enjoy!
I cannot wait for you all to try this – and I’m sorry it’s taken me longer than promised to get it up here on the blog! Please, please tag me once you make it. I can’t wait to see!
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- 400 g active, bubbly starter
- 600 g warm water
- 250 g honey or maple syrup I prefer half of each
- 70 g avocado oil or melted coconut oil
- 1 egg beaten
- 17 g salt
- 1190 g unbleached all purpose flour (about 9.5 cups)
Instructions
The Night Before
- About 12 hours prior to starting the dough, feed your starter so it is active & bubbly the next morning. See notes for my ratio!
In The Morning
- Combine the active sourdough starter, water, honey and/or maple syrup, oil, egg, and salt in a large bowl or stand mixer. Add the flour about 300g at a time, mixing as you go. Use your hands to incorporate the last bit of flour, then knead the dough with the mixer or your hands for 10 minutes.
- Cover the dough with a lid or light towel and allow to rise until doubled (about 4 to 6 hours). I mark the side with a dry erase marker so I can visually gauge when it's doubled.
In the Afternoon
- Line three 9 x 5 inch (or 1.5 qt) loaf pans with a strip of parchment paper cut to fit the widest side of the pan and long enough to hang over the edges & act as a sling to easily remove the loaves. Set aside
- Once the dough has doubled in size, use your hands to gently scoop it out onto a large, lightly floured cutting board. Use a dough scraper to divide the dough into 3 portions. Gently form into loaf shapes and put each portion into a lined loaf pan.
- Cover with a light towel and allow to rise until doubled, about 3 to 5 hours (it will rise even more in the oven, but you want the dough to look plump and smooth and filling up the sides of the loaf pan).
In the Evening
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Once the loaves have doubled, transfer to the oven and bake for 28 minutes or until golden on the outside and an internal temperature reads 180ºF. Immediately transfer to a cooling rack to prevent condensation.
- Allow the bread to fully cool to room temperature, then slice & serve. Store the remaining bread in a ziploc bag (with any excess air squeezed out) in the fridge or freezer, and toast or sit out to come to room temperature for serving. Enjoy!
9 Comments
Allison
March 18, 2022 at 10:03 amI couldn’t believe how easy this was! So delicious too!
Carla
April 10, 2022 at 1:33 pmThis was great, easy, rose like a dream and tasted delicious. We are going to try to make a cinnamon swirl version next batch! Thanks for sharing your creation!!
Linda Olivo
February 20, 2023 at 7:38 pmDid you make this? How?
Becky
January 14, 2023 at 5:59 pmWhere do you get the starter?
Jessica
January 16, 2023 at 6:56 amHi Jessie! I bought all the ingredients to make this today except for the starter. I’m new to making bread- this will be my first attempt. When it Calls for 60g starter is that premixed or does the starter multiply once it sits overnight ? Most starter I’m finding doesn’t come in 60g bags
Kelsey
January 23, 2023 at 1:44 pmSo easy and delicious! The 1/2 maple and 1/2 honey was the perfect amount of sweetness.
Rachelle Joriman
January 26, 2023 at 1:01 pmI had lots of sourdough discard so I decided to try this with just the discard and it worked GREAT! I haven’t made the original recipe to compare but it tasted amazing, was light and fluffy, all the same with using discard instead of a fed starter. I did 1/3 the recipe in case it didn’t turn out but used all the same measurements. I gave it a little more rise time- I also live in MN which requires more rise time in the Winter but turned out fabulous! Thank you!
Shianne
February 11, 2023 at 1:22 amSo easy! So good! I use butter instead of oil & cut the honey/maple in half and it’s still amazing!!!
Robyn
July 31, 2023 at 12:44 pmWe love this recipe! My 8yo ranked her favorite sourdough recipes and this bread was her number 1!