It’s been over 2 years… 2 years since we have purchased store-bought bread! All we eat is freshly made bread made with 3-6 ingredients and let me tell you, our bodies love us for that! I started my sourdough journey in January of 2024 and I’m pleased to say that my sourdough mother, Nella Ruby, is alive and thriving! I’ve made lots of traditional sourdough loaves, I’ve folded in some tasty ingredients to change it up a bit, and we’ve even found some delicious sourdough desserts. This recipe that I’m sharing with you though, has taken my sourdough game to the next level. As much as we dislike all the unnecessary ingredients in store-bought bread…we did miss the softness of it. When I stumbled on this soft sandwich bread recipe on Instagram, I knew this was a recipe I HAD to master! We LOVE this sandwich bread, so I want to share it with all my fellow sourdough peeps! It took some trial and error to tweak the recipe specifically to my oven. The original recipe I found said to bake at 425 for 30 total minutes, but that didn’t work for us because it came out doughy in the middle. The perfect loaves in my oven are baked at 440 for 42 minutes. So, if at first you don’t succeed with this recipe, try, and try again…I did!
Side note- This is not a “quick” recipe. It requires some planning ahead. If I start my dough today…I know I won’t be baking this bread until tomorrow evening.
Soft Sourdough Sandwich Bread
-Ingredients: 650g room temperature water, 300g of bubbly sourdough, 20g sea salt, 20g honey, 20g oil(I’ve used olive and avocado) 1000g flour(all-purpose organic unbleached)
-In a large mixing bowl(on a food scale), mix- water, sourdough, salt, honey, and oil then stir. Add flour mix together with a Danish Dough Whisk. Once ingredients are well mixed, use your hands to tug and tuck/stretch and fold(whatever you like to call it) Let sit for 15ish minutes
-Tug and tuck 3 more times within the next couple hours
-Cover with a damp tea towel and give it time to rise, it should double in size. I just leave mine on the kitchen counter. At my house this typically takes all evening and overnight. 12-15 hours
-Once dough has doubled in size, scrape out of your bowl onto a clean and floured surface. Grease or parchment paper your loaf pans(I use cast iron). Cut dough in half using a pastry cutter. Shape the two halves into loaves. Roll and pinch the ends. Place seam side down in your loaf pans. Cover with a damp tea towel and let them sit for a couple hours. You’ll want the dough to rise a little over the pans.
-Preheat oven to 440
-Place a pan of water on the bottom rack while you bake the loaves for the first 21 minutes. (Minutes will vary…this is trial and error…but should be between 17-21) I use a muffin tin because it’s easier for me to carry water in these.
-Remove water pan, rotate and swap sides for loaf pans, bake an additional 21 minutes
-Tops should brown a little, they will feel crunchy at first but will soften up as they cool.
-Place on a cooling rack as soon as they come out of the oven.
With regular sourdough, I know you aren’t supposed to cut the loaf until it’s cooled completely…with this sandwich loaf, we’ve cut and enjoyed it fresh out of the oven…YUM!!!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFx0O8DRcYY
Link to a Reel on Instagram for a video tutorial.
Links above are Amazon Affiliate links for the products that I use for baking these loaves, that you might find useful too! If you shop my links you will help me earn a small commission.
Ezekiel 4:9-And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it.