Beautiful loaves of sourdough bread look so delicious and appetizing. But what if you just want a basic sandwich loaf of sourdough bread? Can you bake sourdough in a loaf pan with good results?
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Yes!!! You can bake sourdough in a loaf pan. It is a simple process and only requires a few different adjustments to get a nice crusty loaf.
I make my simple sourdough bread fairly often. It is an easy recipe that doesn’t take much time. It’s even easier when I can throw it in a loaf pan and not have to do much else with it.
When you make sourdough in a loaf pan it gives you a nice loaf that makes a really great sandwich. Or you can slice it up and put it in the toaster.
Start by mixing up a regular batch of simple sourdough bread. You’ll let it rise like normal for the first rise. Then form the loaf and lay it in a greased loaf pan and let it raise again, bake and bam! Sourdough in a loaf pan.
What’s the best loan pan to use?
I use a large sized pullman loaf pan. My kids devour this bread so really, I should make 2 loaves at a time but I don’t. I enjoy the process of making the bread so I don’t mind too much when they want more. The large sized pullman loaf pan makes a loaf of bread abut the size of a loaf of sandwich bread from the store, not the fancier kinds, just the plain ol’ Great Value brand. Depending on your family size, you could make 2 loaves at a time and save yourself some time in the kitchen.
You can also make this sourdough in a glass 1.5 quart loaf pan or use a 1 pound aluminum pan.
Make the dough
- Put 6 cups of flour into a large bowl. Whole wheat or white flour both work well.
- Add 1 cup of active sourdough starter
- Add 2 cups of warm water
- Add 1/3 cup of olive oil
- Add 1 tablespoon salt
Next, with clean hands, dig in a get it all mixed together. It doesn’t take much. At this point, the dough will not be smooth. It will be a little sticky, but thats ok. After you’ve got it mixed together well, lay a tea towel (or a regular kitchen towel or plastic wrap or bowl cover) over the top and let the dough rise in a warm area for 4-6 hours. This is a great thing to do right after lunch. You can mix the dough, let it rise for the afternoon, then shape and let it rise overnight. You’ll be able to serve your family a fresh baked loaf of homemade sourdough bread for breakfast the next morning! What a treat!
Second Rise
After the dough has been rising for 4-6 hours, you can turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. It will have a much different texture than it did when you first left it to rise. It should be fluffy, soft, pliable and not nearly as sticky. If it is still too sticky, add more flour to the countertop before you start to form the dough.
Because I use the large sized pullman loaf pans it can be a little tricky to make my dough into a log that is long enough to fit the pan. The easiest way I have found to do this is to roll the dough out into a long rectangle, the same length. Then I start at one end of the rectangle and roll it up into a log shape. I then pick up the entire log and drop it down into my pan.
When baking in a loaf pan, I don’t use parchment paper to line the pan. The pans I have are finished with a silicone non-stick coating so I don’t worry about the bread sticking to the pan. If your pan is not non-stick, give it a quick spray with some oil or lay a sheet of parchment paper between the bread and the pan.
Once your dough is in the pan you will let it rise for 8-12 (or longer) hours. I like to put my loaf in the fridge overnight because it allows me to easily score the dough before I bake it the next day. Either way you choose, on the counter or in the fridge, be sure to cover you dough so it doesn’t dry out.
The Baking Process
A loaf of artesian sourdough bread is traditionally bakes in a dutch oven. This gives the dough a really nice crispy crust because the moisture gets trapped inside the pan as the dough springs up in the oven. It also helps the loaf to maintain the moist fluffy texture inside while having the crispy crust on the outside. To create the same environment inside the oven, we are going to add a pan of hot water to the bottom of the oven.
I put my pan of hot water on the bottom rack. Make sure to adjust the racks in your oven so you can fit both pans inside nicely. The pan doesn’t need to be big. I like to use my 9×9 baking pan. The water in the pan will continue to heat and release steam inside your home oven. This gives the idea of a dutch oven keeping the inside of the oven moist instead of letting it dry out with the heat. Go ahead a start preheating your oven temperature to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and put the pan of hot water in so it can begin to heat up.
Make it Pretty
If you let your loaf rise a second time in the fridge the surface of the dough will be really smooth allowing you to score a design into the top of the dough before you bake it. This is one of my favorite parts of baking bread. A loaf of bread that has been scored with a fun design before baking ends up with a beautiful crust. Food is so much more fun to eat when it is aesthetically pleasing. To score my dough, I use a sharp razor blade. It’s not anything fancy, actually, my husband uses the same blades in his utility knife. But it gets the job done without any extra cost. Maybe some day I will get a fancy scoring lame, but for now my razor blade works just fine.
Even if you don’t know how or care to score something into the top of your loaf, you need to at least run a sharp knife down the middle of it to make a long slice about 1/2 inch to 1 inch deep in the top of the loaf. Doing with will help your bread to not split when it has its oven spring. The moisture inside the bread needs to escape somewhere. When you don’t score the bread, it will cause the moisture to find its own way out, creating bulges and blowouts in your bread. Putting a slice down the middle gives the moisture a place to escape, keeping your bread beautiful.
Don’t Be Impatient!
After you have scored the dough and the oven is preheated, put the loaf into the oven. Close the door, set the timer for 45 minutes. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee and read a book while you wait. Try to keep the oven door closed during the baking process. This keeps the moisture trapped inside while the bread is cooking.
When the timer goes off, check the bread to see how it looks. If the top is all golden brown, go ahead a check the internal temperature of the loaf. It should be around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. If it is not done yet, close the door again and set the time for another 10 minutes.
After the loaf is finished cooking, take it out of the pan and put it on a wire rack to cool. You don’t want to leave the bread in the pan while cooling. I have done this and it ruins the crust. All the moisture that is trying to escape from the loaf has no where to go when you leave it in the pan. This causes the side and bottom crusts to get all soggy. Not so appetizing and really disappointing when you’ve worked so hard and have been waiting so long to enjoy a delicious slice of fresh bread.
Let the bread cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting into it. I know this is sooooooo hard!!!!! But I promise, the bread will still be warm and taste freshly baked. If you try to cut it too soon, you risk smashing the loaf while cutting it and then you ruin the fluffy yumminess of the inside.
What to Put on Top?
We enjoy our sourdough bread with butter and homemade jam. This bread slices really nicely making the perfect loaf for sandwiches. You can also eat it with nothing on top because it really is that good!
Shop This Post
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Do you cover the bread with the lid while baking or bake without the lid?
I baked these without the lid. You can bake with the lid for the first 20 minutes and then remove the lid for the rest of the baking.