Sweet Sourdough Bread Recipe

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Not quite as enriched as a brioche, this soft, sweet sourdough loaf will make you sigh with delight. Perfect with butter and jam next to your coffee.

A slice of sourdough bread with butter and jam.

This dough is the perfect canvas to use for things like French toast or bread pudding. The dough contains more sugar in it leading to a soft end product. Sugar and fat's role in a bread dough is to tighten up the crumb (how big the holes are) as well as make it more tender and extend the shelf life of it being a soft bread.

I love to have a thick slice of this with some jam, next to my warm cuppa. If you want more goodies to have a tea time spread, I recommend some honey-sweetened cut out cookies. And while you've got the jam out, it's perfect on top of plain sourdough scones.

Why You Need This Recipe

The sugar and fat make this feel like a treat when it's good for your gut sourdough.
Will get you in the rhythm of letting dough sour for a long time! I promise this is easy to fit into your days.
Sugar and fat allow this to have some "shelf life."

Key Ingredients

Ingredients to make sweet sourdough bread.

Starter - Use an active starter that's hoppin to make bread, or make yourself up a levain 8-12 hours ahead.

Milk - This is where the bulk of our sugar and fat come from, so I don't recommend skimping!

Flour - Using AP or bread flour will keep this light and airy.

Sugar - Granulated sugar to feed our natural yeast as well as add preservatives to the bread.

How to Make Sweet Sourdough Bread

***See recipe card below for precise measurements and instructions.***

Step 1: Mix the sugar into your starter.

Step 2: Warm up the fat and mix with milk and the starter until everything is smooth.

Step 3: Stir all ingredients together into a shaggy dough.

Step 4: Let rest and knead to a smooth ball before letting sour.

Shaggy ball of bread dough on a floured surface.

Step 5: Shape into two loaves and again let raise and sour.

Step 6: Bake, swapping the pans around halfway through baking time until golden and baked through.

Tips and Tricks

Milk: If you're hard pressed, you can swap in water, but that's removing some fat and sugar. It would be best to add a tablespoon or so each of your fat and sugar (on top of the called-for amounts) to your measuring cup before topping up with water.

Eggs: Always looking to use up eggs? Reduce the milk by 100g and use two eggs stirred into the starter.

Flour: You could go up to half of the amount in whole wheat flour if you truly wanted, but keep in mind it will create a denser loaf.

Looking for a real treat? Use this dough as the base for cinnamon rolls. Use my recipe or your own favourite for the filling, rolling, and baking.

FAQs

How do know my sourdough starter is active?

If you have fed recently, and it is bubbly and doubling, but has not yet begun to fall, you're golden. But I also love to make this as a levain, where I measure out 50 grams starter, 100 grams water, and 125 grams flour and let feed/sour for 8-12 hours before using.

How can I tell bread is fully baked?

There's nothing worse than slicing into a fresh loaf to find a gummy center. Or as it cools you are watching it sink in the middle. I always, always use a thermometer to tell if my bread is done. You can't go by colour! And while it is usually hollow-sounding when thumped, I prefer to use the scientific method of checking for at least 180°F in the center.

Photos by Dante from Shire by the Sea

More Sourdough Recipes

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