Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread (Recipe 2.0)

This is my recipe for an easy sourdough sandwich bread with a soft crust and fluffy crumb, and it doesn’t require too many extra ingredients – just a small amount of milk, butter, and sugar. The process is simple too: mix the ingredients in one bowl, knead the dough, let it rise, shape it, let it rise again, and bake.

Here’s the non-stick metal bread pan I use for this type of bread:
https://amzn.to/4lamDP7
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Here is the written recipe for this bread:

Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Click here to find all of the recipes in the 52 Weeks of Sourdough series:
https://grantbakes.com/52

today I’ll show you how to make an easy sourdough sandwich bread without using too many extra ingredients this bread will both be soft on the inside as well as on the outside which is sometimes hard to achieve with homemade bread it’s a nice fluffy interior perfect for making sandwiches or toast pretty much anytime you would want to use sliced bread from the store you should use this homemade sourdough sandwich bread instead to make your dough get a bowl on a digital scale and start by adding 200 g of water to the mixing bowl after that we’re going to add 50 grams of whole milk or any kind of non-dairy milk would work fine as well adding milk in addition to the water is going to bring a little bit of extra softness to the dough next comes the sourdough starter you’re going to need 100 g of active and risen sourdough starter last night I took 25 g of starter out of the fridge fed it 50 g of water 50 g of bread flour i let it rise overnight and in the morning it was ready to use in my dough so add 100 gram of your active and risen sourdough starter to the dough and then put the rest of your starter back into the fridge for next time then add 10 grams of white sugar ignore my scale i pre-measured this and it was 10 g sometimes these scales can be a little bit sensitive the sugar will add a touch of sweetness to the dough as well as hold on to moisture so it’ll keep the bread softer for longer next add 2 tablespoons or about 25 g of melted butter that’ll bring a little bit of richness and softness to the dough as well and then for the final ingredient add 10 g of salt i’m using kosher salt again ignore the scale i pre-measured this and it’s 10 g so it’s a basic sourdough bread dough with just a little bit of milk a little bit of butter and a little bit of sugar these ingredients will bring softness and richness to the loaf of bread but it’s not like you’re adding a pound of butter or six eggs or something really intense like a bio this is just a simple recipe that you can mix and knead by hand speaking of mixing stir the liquid ingredients together just to combine and then add 450 g of bread flour right on top of the wet ingredients i’m using the blue bag of King Arthur bread flour now let’s turn these ingredients into some bread dough start by mixing the dough ingredients together for about a minute until most of those dry bits of flour disappear once your dough looks something like this and it starts to hold together cover the dough up with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 10 minutes on your counter this short rest period will help the dough hold together better when you need it 10 minutes later uncover the dough and dump it out onto your clean kitchen counter you don’t need any extra flour on the counter at this point now knead the dough by hand for about 8 minutes for the first minute or so you’ll be picking up those loose bits of dough that fall out of the clump but after that the dough should hold together pretty well just continue kneading until your 8-minute timer goes off and at that point your dough should look something like this it should be smooth on top and hold together really well now it’s time for the first rise or the bulk fermentation i like to do this in a separate glass bowl i have this 7 cup glass bowl with a lid that I’ve greased with a little bit of butter just so the dough doesn’t stick place your dough into your separate bowl and press it down a little bit if you want to then place the lid on and move this to a spot on your counter where you can let your dough rise for a few hours and let it rise at room temperature for four to six hours or until it roughly doubles in size it’s summer right now in my Arizona kitchen so it’s relatively warm in the kitchen and it only took 4 and 1/2 hours for the dough to be absolutely busting out of the bowl so depending on the temperature in your kitchen it might take anywhere from four to six hours for your dough to double in size maybe even a little bit longer once your dough is doubled in size it’s time to remove it from the bowl and shape it for a bread pan we’re going to do this in two stages the pre-shape and the final shape for the first stage pre-shape your dough into a ball by placing it onto your clean kitchen counter no flour necessary on the counter at this point either go around the dough a few times with your hands gently shaping it into a ball this process will gently knock the air out of the dough and it’ll give the dough some strength and structure once you’ve shaped your dough into a ball like this let it rest on the counter uncovered for about 15 minutes then after your 15-minute rest get out a standard bread pan i like this metal non-stick bread pan from USA Pans i’ll link to this exact pan that I’m using in the video description so that you can get one if you want to and you can see the exact size of the pan I’m using but it’s just their standard pan sometimes called a one lb loaf pan grease your pan with a little oil or butter if you want to especially if you’re not using a non-stick pan and now you’re ready for the final shape this shaping technique is one I’ve liked to use lately it’s really easy and takes almost zero technical skill so if you don’t like shaping try this technique flip your dough over so the smooth side is facing down and the sticky side is facing up and press down the dough a little bit just to flatten it into a circle then pick it up again and fold the two ends of the dough together just like you’re closing a book the seam should meet right there in the middle then give the dough a 90° turn and close the book one more time folding those two ends of dough into each other this fold turn fold technique is really good at building strength into the dough it gives the dough a lot of structure so it’ll be able to rise nice and tall in the oven but it doesn’t require too much fuss or technical skill now pinch the seams of the dough closed if you want to that part is kind of optional honestly then flip your dough over and you can see here we’ve pretty much got a loaf shape already smooth out the edges of the dough if you want to as well this part is also optional then gently lift up the dough and transfer it seamside down into your greased bread pan now your dough is ready for the second rise or the final proof in the bread pan for the final proof cover your dough up with a kitchen towel and let it rise at room temperature for 2 to four hours or until it’s completely doubled in size in my warm kitchen it only took 2 and 1/2 hours before my dough was completely doubled in size like this but I do really like to push the proof as long as I can when I’m baking bread in a loaf pan for breads like these when you’re not scoring them you really want to push them as far as you can in the final proof so they don’t rip along the sides when they’re baking speaking of baking about 30 minutes before your dough is done proofing preheat your oven to 400° Fahrenheit you’ll want to bake the bread on the middle rack with a metal pie pan or cake pan in the lower rack of your oven you’ll use that as a steam tray when your oven is preheated and the dough is done proofing it’s time to bake but there’s one last step which is technically optional but I highly recommend it and that’s adding an egg wash just take one small egg mix it thoroughly with a fork or a whisk and then brush it on top of your bread with a pastry brush this will give your final baked bread a shiny golden brown top which is typical for breads like bio and a lot of different sweet pastries it’s optional but it will make this bread look really nice now it’s time to bake move your bread to the middle rack of your oven slide it to the center and then pour about a cup of boiling or very hot water into that steam tray that will release steam during the first half of the baking time allowing the bread to rise properly and develop a nice crust now close your oven and let the bread bake at 400° F for 20 minutes 20 minutes later remove the steam tray and continue baking for another 20 minutes until the bread is a dark golden brown after 40 minutes of total bake time your bread should be done and ready to pull out of the oven transfer the bread to your kitchen counter knock it out of the bread pan it should slide out easily if you’re using a non-stick pan and place the bread on a wire rack or some kind of cooling rack to cool for at least 1 hour before slicing in speaking of slicing this bread slices up fairly easily thanks to that thin outer crust it’s definitely not as crusty as a typical countrystyle sourdough bread the small amount of milk butter and sugar in this dough give the sourdough bread a softness that I can really appreciate especially in this type of bread that I’m planning to mostly use for sandwiches texture- wise you can see just how tender this bread is here and flavor-wise there is just a very light sweetness a mild sourdough tanginess pair that with the soft texture and crust and this is just a way better version of white bread and unlike highlyenriched breads like bio this bread isn’t quite as rich or decadent and it’s not as hard to make it’s just your standard make it every week type of white bread i’m making a different sourdough recipe every single week this year in my 52 weeks of sourdough series and this bread I pretty much made purposefully so I could have some BLTs and tomato sandwiches and it’s worked out great for that so far