This honey sourdough bread recipe was really good, and was good for both eating by itself and for making sandwiches. The bread itself has a very faint flavor of the honey, so it’s not an overwhelming flavor, it just gives it a little bit of sweetness.
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Make a sponge or a yeast/sourdough mix.
The recipe starts with a sourdough sponge, or you mix the sponge then add a little yeast to it if you want to shorten the prep time!
Sponge recipe:
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter
- 1 1/2 cups AP flour
- 1 cup warm water.
Mix the three ingredients in a bowl and cover it. Leave it for 12-36 hours to let it get more active.
If you don’t have time, you can mix the sponge and add a tablespoon of active dry yeast to give it a boost, let it sit for half an hour, then make the bread as usual.
Honey sourdough bread recipe.
Ingredients:
- Sourdough sponge
- 1 1/2 cups warm milk
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 tsp salt
- 4-5 cups AP flour (unbleached if possible)
- Mix the milk, honey, salt and 3 cups of the flour into the sponge. Add more flour a little at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead it for 8-10 minutes, adding flour as needed to keep it from sticking.
- You can use a mixer for this, but make sure that the dough is actually moving in the mixer and not just whipping around in a circle while it’s stuck to the dough hook.
- Put the dough in an oiled bowl and let it rise until doubled in size.
- Oil the bottoms of two 9″ loaf pans.
- Split the dough ball into two sections and put the dough in the loaf pans.
- Let the dough rise to about doubled in size.
- Fifteen minutes before the bread is ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Score the tops of the loaves if you want to, and bake for 40-45 minutes, until the internal temperature of the bread is about 185-190. (Use an instant read thermometer inserted in the bottom of one loaf to test that.)
- Put the loaves on cooling racks and de-pan them after ten minutes or so, then let them cool off completely before storing.
Kneading the dough.
I wasn’t in a mood to knead the bread by hand today, so I made it using a mixer with a bread hook to do the kneading. If you do this, make sure that the bread is actually being kneaded and not just whipped around on the hook, or it won’t get the knead that it needs (see what I did there.)
If you do this by hand you should knead it for 8-10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and has a blistery appearance on the surface.
In the mixer, I let it go for about 8 minutes, and it was wetter than I probably would have had it if I did it by hand. Just remember that the wetter the dough, the crustier the finished loaf will be.
For a recipe for applesauce sourdough bread, click here.
First rise.
Put the bread in a bowl to let it rise. I use these AWESOME Pyrex bowls that I got on Amazon here: Colorful Pyrex with lids (#ad). The benefit of the lids is that you can have a clean cover each time you need to use one, and you can mix the sponge and the bread in the same bowl and cover it in between steps.
Let the dough rise to about double in size. This should take a few hours at least, but it might take more depending on how warm it is where you are. In really cold rooms, this can take a long time! You can also put the dough in the fridge overnight to let it rise, then bake it in the morning.
Second rise.
Split the dough ball into two equal-ish pieces, and put them in loaf pans that have been oiled on the bottoms.
This dough was kind of sticky after it rose the first time, but that’s okay. You can shape it to be smoother by rounding it.
Round the loaf by stretching it into a smooth shape. Basically, stretch the ball from the top and bring the sides down and back into the back of the bread until the top is smooth.
Put the bread into the loaf pans and cover them with a kitchen towel to let them proof (the second rise.) This should take a couple of hours depending on how warm it is where you are.
When they’ve doubled in size, they’re ready to bake.
Scoring the loaves.
I scored these loaves with a razor before baking. This will let the top of the loaf open up as the steam escapes, and it gives you the split-top loaf look.
Don’t score them too deeply, just about half an inch or so, but this isn’t a rule. you can do them however you want.
I gave these two slashes, so they’ll be a little different than a split-top loaf, but it’s more decorative.
Here’s the finished bread. I could have gone crazier with the scoring, but you get the point.
Cooling and storing the loaves.
This recipe had a fairly thick crust, but it softened up after being put in a plastic bag to store it. If you put the loaves in a plastic bag when they’re still a little warm, the crust will soften up a little bit.
This bread has a good texture that’s pretty dense.
We used this for sandwiches and it held up well even in a panini press.
The flavor is slightly sweet but not overwhelmingly sweet. You taste the honey but if you don’t know it’s in the bread you might not be able to identify what it is.
To store the bread, put it in a plastic ziplock bag. I just leave mine out on the counter next to a cutting board and a knife, because it’s so good and we eat it for snacks.
