I love a great sourdough bread, but sometimes you need a soft white bread for a delicious sandwich. This is a combination of the two of them. A soft white bread, with a deliciously caramelized crust and a very soft and slightly tangy interior. The best of both worlds. This is my recipe for sourdough sandwich bread.
Sandwich bread is made specifically for the preparation of sandwiches. They are easily sliced and usually have a light crumb.
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Jump to RecipeThe history of sandwich bread
Sandwich bread, or pain de mie, or sometimes pullman loaf (named for the tin that it’s baked in) came to prominence in the early 1900’s.
In 1928 the first automatic bread slicing machine became available, and with thinner and more uniform slices bread consumption began to rise.
In 1943 a short-lived ban on sliced bread in the United States, as a wartime conservation measure. It resulted in a public outcry and only three months after the ban took effect it was abolished again.
In the second half of the 20th century the sandwich bread became synonymous with a really unhealthy bread with nothing good for you in it. That pretty much still holds true if you buy it in the supermarket.
If you make it yourself that is a whole different story.
The formula in this sourdough sandwich bread recipe
Vitals
| Total weight | 1670 grams |
| Prefermented flour | 8.33% |
| Hydration | 69.2% |
| Yield | 2 x 835 grams loaves |
Levain
The levain is meant to grow overnight and be used in the dough after 12 hours. If you want to you can skip building the levain and just use 150g mature sourdough starter directly in the dough.
The flour in the levain is just all-purpose flour as this is the flour being used in the recipe. If you keep your starter with a different flour, note that it can change the feel of the bread a bit.
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker's Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 30g | starter (100% hydration) | 50.0% |
| 60g | all-purpose flour | 100.0% |
| 60g | water | 100.0% |
Dough
The bread is made with 100% all-purpose flour. Which should be your regular 10-ish percent protein wheat flour. I’d opt for the organic kind.
This gives you a softer bread, both crust and crumb, but enough gluten development to make a good bread.
It has a little above 10% butter, which gives the bread a wonderful buttery, nutty aroma, and also helps soften the crumb further.
A little bit of sugar has been added to give a sweeter taste, but also temper the tang in the starter. If you have a particularly acidic starter or you like your bread on the sweeter side, you can double this amount.
Part of the fluid in the has been replaced by milk. The softer of a crumb you want, the higher percentage of fat in the milk you can use. If you want to be extravagant you can go for half whipping cream, half whole milk.
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker's Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 900g | all-purpose flour | 100.0% |
| 100g | butter | 11.1% |
| 60g | cane sugar | 6.7% |
| 200g | milk | 22.2% |
| 400g | water | 44.4% |
| 20g | salt | 2.2% |
If you want to change the formula for this bread, you can do it in my bread calculator here.
If you want to use a different pan size, you can calculate the dough weight needed here:
Note
The dough size calculated here is for one separate bread. If you want to make two as in the recipe below you need to scale it up by two.
The conclusion of this sourdough sandwich bread recipe
While this is a bread made with a sourdough starter, it doesn’t seem like that at all.
The crust is really soft but very brown and caramelized with the most delicious buttery smell coming from it.
The crumb is soft and moist, with the slightest hint of a tang from the sourdough starter. Enough to give the bread a wonderful character.
The bread has enough taste to be able to stand on its own if you want that, but not so much that it will overpower the ingredients you put on it.
Because of the relatively high hydration compared to other sandwich loaves, it stays wonderful and moist (if kept in a ziplock bag) for up to 5 days.
It’s a total no brainer. This should be your go to sandwich bread.
Please share this recipe for sourdough sandwich bread on social media
This is my recipe for sourdough sandwich bread. I hope you will try to make it, because it’s absolutely delicious.
If you bake it and post it to Instagram, please tag me as @foodgeek.dk, so I can see it. That would make me very happy.
Ad links! The links in the recipe for ingredients or tools are affiliate links, which means that I get commission if you purchase the product!
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
Levain
- 30 g sourdough starter
- 60 g all-purpose flour
- 60 g water
Dough
- 900 g all-purpose flour
- 100 g butter
- 60 g cane sugar
- 200 g milk
- 400 g water
- 20 g salt
Instructions
Make the levain – the night before
- Mix 30g sourdough starter, 60g all-purpose flour and 60g water in a tall glass container.
- Leave it to ferment overnight
Autolyse – morning
- In the bowl of your standmixer, mix 900g all-purpose flour, 60g cane sugar and 20g salt with the paddle attachment until it's combined.
- Add 400g of water and 200g of milk and mix until combined.
- Cover with a damp dish towel and let sit for 30 minutes.
- While the dough is autolysing cube 100g of butter and leave it to come up to room temperature.
Mix dough
- After the 30 minutes are up add the entire levain on the top of the dough and mix it in using a dough hook. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.
- Then put in a couple of cubes of butter and mix them in.
- Keep going until you have no more butter.
- Cover the bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes
Bulk fermentation
- Do 3 sets of stretch and folds spaced out by 30 minutes.
- At the end of the third set, do a windowpane test to check gluten development and add more sets as needed.
- Then put the dough in a bulking container and let it sit until it's grown about 25-50%. About 2-4 hours.
Divide and preshape
- Then grab the dough and put it on your unfloured kitchen counter.
- Divide it into two equally sized pieces and shape each piece into a round using your bench scraper.
Final shape
- Spray two molds with non-stick spray.
- Lightly flour your counter and flip a round onto the flour.
- Degas the dough and tease it out into a rectangle.
- Pull the bottom of the dough out and fold it up about a third.
- Then repeat from the left and the right side.
- Roll the dough up tightly so that the seam ends up underneath the loaf.
- Move the loaf to the tin and repeat with the other one.
Final rise
- Then let the dough ferment somewhere warm until it's grown about 50-75%. In the pullman tin it should be about 1 inch/2.5 cm from the edge.
- When you can see the dough is about ready heat your oven to 220°C/425°F.
- If using an open pan, you should glaze the bread with an egg yolk mixed with one tablespoon of milk.
Bake the loaves
- Add the bread to the oven and bake for about 35 minutes.
- Then turn down the temperature to 190°C/375°F and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the bread registers 99°C/210°F on a probe thermometer.
- Then take out of the oven and let it cool completely on a wire rack.
Video
I am crazy about food, cakes, snacks and everything in between. I love to do tons of experiments to find the best recipe, so that you don’t have to.
I made this bread and it turned out GREAT and have it on my list to make again. Thanks Wayne
Thank you <3
Hello!
I’m making the sourdough sandwich bread and I’m running out of time, can I shaped the dough and put it in the tin and then put it in the refrigerator and bake the next day?
Also, can I substitute a little whole wheat with the AP flour?
Thanks for your help!
Donna
Yes, you can always prolog proofing in a cold environment 🙂
Also, whole wheat makes for a biter heartier but tasty loaf 🙂
Hello again!
Another question about the sourdough sandwich loaf. 😬
The dough took forever to rise. I had it in a Brod and Taylor at 78 degrees for over 5 hours and finally had to bake it. The dough didn’t rise in the tin, but the crumb looked like yours and felt good. I only have a 9×5 loaf pan.
What could I have done wrong. This is my first time making a sandwich loaf.
Thank you so much for your help and I won’t give up! Also, I love your videos!
Donna
How long did the bulk go? Did it rise then?
Hello, just wondering if you can make 2 loaves in “8 x 4 x 2 1/2” high? What would the quantity of ingredients be? I’m fairly new at the Sourdough baking, love it but find the crust quite tough for my teeth. Hoping you can help me. Thank you so much!
Yes, about 600g of dough.
Here it is scaled for 2 rye breads: https://fgbc.dk/16e 🙂
I’ve made it successfully in one try. I had to leave the last proofing a lot longer than it is suggested. The dough did not double in size the first day; I put it in refrigerator overnight. The next day, the dough proofed in less than two hours. The texture and the taste came out great. Thank you so much for posting the method and the video.
Proofing is one of those things. There’s many factors that play in, but you did the right thing 🙂
Hello Sune, would I need any changes if using all bread flour?
No, but depending on your flour it may become a bit more chewy. I’d say give it a go! 🙂
Thanks for quick response, Sune. Will try it and let you know my results.
Gale
Hi Sune, well I am not having much luck with sourdough. Have been working on my starter 3 weeks and it never seems to double in 4-6 hours. I did make this recipe and let’s just say the loaves would make nice doorstops! ha ha
I know the dough did not rise properly and not sure where I went wrong; will keep trying!
I have made this bread 3 times and it’s always a success! I don’t own a kitchen aid so I instead use a wooden spoon and a strong will. Whole wheat flower requires a bit more water I found. Also, the last fold before the run cast really decide wether the dough Will ride or not so make sure to practice.
Tack så mycket för detta grymma recept! 😉
Impressive that you do it with a spoon. How much whole wheat did you use 🙂
Lord have mercy! 😍 Absolutely amazing. I opted to do it with whole wheat flour. 1 loaf only, so I cut the measurements to half ( Exactly as yours.) Left it overnight inside microwave with night light on high.
(From 8pm till 7:30 am). Because I know my oven very well, I baked it at 375°F for 35 minutes lower rack, then transferred it to middle rack for 10 mts.
Thank you! #ILoveSourdough!
That sounds wonderful 🙂
Can I use olive oil and oat milk instead of milk and butter?
Absolutely 🙂
Sourdough baking teaches important life lessons like patience, flexibility, and belief in one’s own intuition. This recipe is outstanding and the video and instructions are extremely helpful. During the pandemic, AP flour is becoming scarce in supermarkets so I used a King Arthur flour labelled “white whole wheat.” The bulk fermentation was taking too long so I let it finish in the refrigerator overnight. It rose beautifully. The final proof took slightly longer because the dough was still cold but rise it did. My only failing was I did not tent the loaves toward the end of the bake and they got a little too dark but I forgave myself when I tasted the first slice – a soft crumb and what a sandwich I had! Thanks so much.
Thank you so much and great to know it also works with white wheat. It makes for a little bit of a more healthy loaf, while not skimping of the softness 🙂
Please advise… So I heard this was a good recipe onand came here to try it. I was only looking to make one loaf so I figured I would cut the recipe in half. I’ve made bread many times, but am new to sourdough. I did everything perfectly until it came time to add the starter (I had a lot so I figured I’d go with the 150g starter option). I forgot to do half… I panicked after this and added the other half of all the other ingredients to try and save things. My scale had the battery die while doing the water weight so I had to guess if I was close enough. I have another scale but no way to figure out measurements from this point. Everything else was done and I was adding water and salt last. It’s all mixed but looks very wet, like a batter. Is this what they consistency should be or did I really mess things up? Please help haha. Thank you!
If you have a look at the video you can see what kind of consistency to go for. It’s tacky but not sticky. Not wet at all.
Hi!
This recipe was great! One thing I might point out- when entering the dimensions for the size bread pan I have, it gave me the ingredient amounts for one loaf, not 2 like your total recipe is for.
I was actually dividing that dough in half and realized it was far too small to fit in 2 pans. I checked my hunch by entering in the dimensions of a pullman loaf pan and it gave me the weight you used for each loaf after divided.
It makes sense to only give the ingredients amount for 1 pan, but you might want to note that so people aren’t dividing their dough when they shouldn’t be by using the pan dimensions calculator.
Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks. I added a not near the calculator so people know what they are getting 🙂