I love the look of a free form artisan loaf of bread, but I found it tedious to bake enough loaves in a home oven at one time to feed our crew. So I changed my recipe around to bake it in a loaf pan and create a Sourdough Sandwich Bread! This way I can bake 6 loaves of sourdough bread at once and it's a much more efficient use of my time!
Sourdough Sandwich Bread is a very customizable recipe to make your own. Swap some of the flour for whole wheat. Add in ½ cup of oats, or some seeds such as sunflower, sesame or flax! Add in raisins and cinnamon. As a guide, ½ cup of add-ins and you won't need to change the recipe. One cup of flour can be swapped out for whole wheat without needing to tweak anything either.
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- ½ - ¾ cup sourdough starter if your starter is runny, add less, thick, add more
- 1 - 2 tablespoons honey or sugar more honey/sugar makes a softer bread. Double this if you want a soft soft bread!
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil/fat of choice
- 1 - 1 ¼ cups water
- 3 - 3 ½ cups white flour
Instructions
Sourdough Sandwich Bread Dough
- Mix starter, honey, salt, oil and water together in a mixer or by hand. I love my Danish dough whisk for this!
- Add flour in until you have a kneadable consistency that either A.) The dough doesn't stick to side of mixer bowl or B.) Dough doesn't stick to your hands when you knead it.
- Knead it for a few minutes then cover with a damp towel and choose your path for first rise depending on your schedule and weather. Warmth speeds up sourdough, cold slows it. This is all on counter unless specified
Winter Rising
- Let the dough sit 12-18 hrs.
- Shape the dough and allow to rise a second time for 2-3hrs.
Alternative Winter Rising
- Let the dough sit 4-6 hrs.
- Shape the dough and put it in the fridge to rise a second time for 12-18hrs.
- Take out an hour before baking. Our laundry room is fridge-ish temp so we put them back there. Before baking when I use this method, I put bread pans in oven, turn oven on for 2 min then turn it off. Let sit in warm oven an hour, take out, then preheat oven for baking. This is my current favourite method.
Summer Rising
- Let the dough sit 6-8 hrs.
- Shape the dough and allow to rise a second time for 1-2 hrs.
Shaping Sourdough Sandwich Bread
- After your first rise, its time to shape! Dump your dough onto a floured surface.
- Press dough roughly into a 6x8inch rectangle, fold like a letter with long sides in, flip seam side down and let sit about 10 minutes. This is called a preshape/bench rest and makes your loaves taller!
Baking Sourdough Sandwich Bread
- Prep your loaf pan by lining with parchment or greasing the pan.
- After the bench rest, flip seam side up, press into rectangle again but this time roll it up, and tuck sides under to make a tidy loaf, then put into the loaf pan.
- Let rise for second rise depending on which path you choose.
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Using your sharpest knife, slash the loaf by slicing a one inch deep line down the length of the bread. You can get artistic or just leave it at that. This allows the bread to expand and rise in the oven better.
- Put pan into oven and bake for 25 min, turn around and then bake 20 more.
- Remove bread from oven and put on a cooling rack. Remove from pan and let cool until around room temp. Its hard to wait but I promise its worth it! The bread is still finishing up baking as it cools.
Notes
- I make this in a x6 recipe cause it's our favourite and freezes well!
Nutrition
More Sourdough Recipes
Once you've mastered working with sourdough you'll find you're wondering what other recipes you can try with it now? Here are my tried & true favorite sourdough recipes!
Pam M
Hi,
I am new to sourdough baking so I have a couple questions,
First is in the section; "Summer Rising-Let the dough sit 6-8 hrs.
Shape the dough and allow it to rise a second time for 1-2 hrs."
Is this before going into the pans? And if so, do you let it rise again after placing the dough into the pans?
Thank you for your help!
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After shaping you can let it rise in the pan on in a parchment lined banneton if you are baking it in a dutch oven.
Farmgirl
Hi! To do a longer ferment, can I put the dough in the fridge for the second rise? If so, how long would you recommend and what about getting it to room temp after (before shaping?) Thank you!
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If you scroll down on the recipe there is an "alternate winter rising" segment. If you follow this you will be shaping then putting in fridge. You will only need to warm it up slightly once you take it out of fridge for baking.
Brit
I love this recipe! I've been making it for years now! Always a favorite I can come back to time and time again!
Shannon D.
Use this recipe every week! It is super adaptable and I hardly measure anything any longer. Have cut it with home milled flour and it's delicious. 10/10
Kaitlen
This is my go to sandwich bread recipe! I love how uncomplicated and intuitive it is!
Laura Colangelo
My all time favorite sandwich bread! Have to make multiple loaves because one always gets eaten as soon as it’s ready!
Krista
This bread always turns out and is Sooo good! It is the best of both worlds. Sourdough but you can make kid friendly sandwiches!!!
This is definitely our go to sandwich bread recipe!!
Kaitlen
We love this bread! It’s the only bread we eat. It is easy to make once you get past the initial sourdough learning curve. This is a very intuitive recipe and it helped me learn to “read my dough”. Definitely worth the effort!
Nicola Smith
This is my go to bread recipe. I usually do 3 loaves for my family of four. 4 loaves pushes my nutrimill artisan mixer (basically a mini bosch) to absolute maximum capacity.
Mariah Kardux
This is my family’s go-to bread recipe. It is easy for beginners or pros! So tasty and soft for my kids to eat which is always a bonus!
Julia
Hi! How would you change the bake time to split this into two smaller boules?
Stella
Will this dough “travel” well. I would like to make the one day, take it 90 miles away and bake the next day?
?
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You could certainly travel with it (love that idea). I would just make sure it's in a bowl, covered, doing it's bulk ferment. Then shape it and let rise at your location before baking.
Pam
This is my all time favorite sourdough sandwich bread recipe! Thanks Kate