Here’s a recipe for a mildly sweet, sourdough maple bread loaf. This is an easy, homemade sourdough bread recipe with no commercial yeast – only sourdough starter! We show you how to make this no knead bread that’s so soft and tangy it makes the perfect toast or sandwich bread. We’ve included tips and troubleshooting for sourdough loaf bread so you can make artisan sourdough bread at home!
Sourdough Maple Bread Recipe
This sourdough maple bread recipe is simple and easy to put together the night before to bake up in the morning. It’s a simple no knead recipe that can be used as a sweet bread or a sandwich bread. I used both Sweet Maple and Beyond Basics with Natural Yeast as inspiration for this recipe (more on those books after the recipe).
If you’re new to making sourdough bread, here’s a quick tutorial video for this recipe. After you view it, be sure to read the more detailed instructions in the recipe.
More Sourdough Breads for Fall:
Sourdough Pitas – easy for fall picnics and the last of the warm weather lawn games.
Sourdough Leftover Cranberry Sauce Loaf – perfect for turkey sandwiches.
Sourdough Dragon Bread – a Special Autumn Treat!
To keep track of your sourdough recipes, as well as ferment times and baking details, please join our newsletter family and receive our super simple Sourdough Worksheets!
Sourdough Maple Bread
Equipment
- Cast Iron Bread Pans, if available.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Sourdough Starter
- 2 Cups Warm Water
- 1/2 Cup Maple Syrup, to taste May increase to 2/3 cup, if desired.
- 1 1/2 Tbsp. Sea Salt
- 1 Tbsp. Butter, room temperature May also use coconut oil.
- 6-6 1/2 Cups Fresh Wheat Flour
Instructions
At Least 8 Hours Before Baking
- Combine the 1 cup of starter, 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of syrup, 1 Tbsp. of salt, and 1 Tbsp. of butter in a mixing bowl. Mix until smooth. If using a mixer, you can use the whisk attachment of your mixer, if desired. Once done mixing, replace with dough hook attachment.
- Add flour in 1 cup increments and mix until incorporated in between. The dough will clean the sides of the bowl when it is thoroughly mixed. The dough will be slightly sticky still but don't add too much flour or this will dry out the bread. See notes for more info.
- Take out the dough hook and scrape off dough into the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or lid and keep in warm place until doubled. This can take 8-10 hours.
Place Into Pans and Bake
- Wet your hands and punch down the dough.
- Wet your hands again, if needed, and remove half the dough from the bowl. Form into a roll and place into a greased bread pan.
- Repeat with the other half of the dough - wet your hands, roll the dough and place into a greased bread pan.
- Place into your oven with the oven light on for extra warmth. Allow bread to rise again until doubled in size - about 2 hours.
- Score the top by cutting a 1/4 inch deep line in the top of the dough with a sharp knife. Bake at 325°F/163°C for 35-40 minutes or until an inserted thermometer reads 180°F/82°C.
Notes
Sourdough Maple Bread Notes
- Use cast iron bread pans, if you have them, for the best shape and rise. Cast iron bread pans are slightly more narrow than standard bread pans.
- They help the sourdough maple bread keep its shape during rise and bake times. If you don’t have them, a regular bread pan will do.
- If you mix well the first time, you won’t need to knead this bread. You know the sourdough maple bread dough is mixed well when it begins to clean the sides of your mixing bowl.
- It will also become more difficult for your machine to mix it. you CAN knead the bread, if you discover you prefer it. However, this will have a lovely texture without kneading.
Basic How-To’s of Sourdough
If you need a little more guidance on sourdough bread or want to try different easy loaf recipes, please visit the following articles:
- Sourdough Bread Beginner Recipe
- Easy Sourdough Bread
- Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
- Healthy Bread & Natural Leavened Sourdough
To make this bread taste even better, I suggest you cut a thick slice and serve it with this Whipped Chocolate Butter recipe which you can find at Montana Happy. I used to eat this for tea when I visited friends in Eastern Europe – so delicious!!
Whipped Chocolate Butter from Montana Happy!
Sweet Maple Book
I just got a copy of Michelle Visser’s new book, Sweet Maple. This book is a cookbook, but it’s also a detailed accounting on how to harvest your own maple syrup.
With detailed instructions, great photos, lots of DIYs and experience shared, Michelle’s family makes it easy for you and I to learn about tapping maple trees.
Even if you don’t have maples, there are still a lot of trees that can be tapped to make other kinds of syrup. For example:
- Joybilee Farm can teach you how to tap birch trees for syrup making
- Homestead Honey can explain how to tap walnut trees for sap to turn into syrup
To be sure, the mapleing aspect of Sweet Maple is for the self-sufficient, homestead-y types. It IS a lot of work, as Michelle honestly shares. However, it’s work that can be done as a family and the family stories are actually one of my favorite parts of Sweet Maple.
Just Maple Recipes
If you’d just like to learn to cook and bake with maple syrup, no worries! Sweet Maple can help you out there, too.
Michelle makes the case for maple syrup as a healthy replacement for table sugar. She provides multiple recipes from Maple Scones to Maple Pork Stir-Fry to teach us how to work maple syrup into favorite dishes.
In fact, my ten-year-old unwrapped Sweet Maple from its postal envelope and wouldn’t give it to me until she’d read through it. She fell in love with the Maple Blueberry Pie recipe and made it that night!
The Best Sourdough Book
Hands down, of all the sourdough books I’ve read, Melissa Richardson’s Beyond Basics with Natural Yeast is my favorite. I’ve used it for several years now for all my sourdough baking. She writes in normal-person speak and her recipes are fabulously reliable.
- Sourdough Kulich for the holidays – any holiday!
- For an overnight soak and a healthy breakfast while running out the door – Sourdough Breakfast Cookies
I even use up extra starter in recipes like this non-fermented Pumpkin Biscuit Recipe just because the flavor is SO good!
Have Maple Left Over?
My friend Susan at Learning and Yearning also picked up Michelle’s book and made these delicious Old Fashioned Maple Syrup Cookies. If you have more maple syrup and want to treat the family, these cookies are an excellent choice!
To create more delicious recipes and cozy family times that bring you closer together, join our newsletter and download your copy of our Homestead Hygge Workbook. Hygge is the Danish concept of turning our homes into sanctuaries of light, love, and peace through simple homespun activities like natural crafts, wholesome recipes, and simple pleasures.
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This sounds so delish! My son and I love breads (especially sourdough) and adding maple seem like the perfect addition for this time of year to change things up 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, Christine! It is SO delicious – you won’t be sorry you made it!
I’m in the middle of making this. Doubled overnight, punched down but it could not be rolled. It’s turned into a sticky mess. I scooped it into pans, this is a new starter(8-9 days old) and the bread I tried to make yesterday also wouldn’t hold shape after the first rise. Is my starter too active? Any ideas what I’m doing wrong? Thanks
Great question, Sara, though I’m sorry you’re struggling – sourdough can sometimes be frustrating! If I’m understanding you correctly, after your punch down, the dough is very wet? If so, let’s see if we can figure out why.
Are you attempting to shape the dough after you’ve kneaded a bit more flour into it? Sometimes it’s necessary to do a quick knead with some flour just to get the loaf shaped. The variation in moisture from dough to dough can usually be traced back to ambient humidity, temperature and the fact that sourdough is a living thing, so it changes. The water from the dough is absorbed by the flour differently each time.
Usually, this can be remedied after punch down by the addition of a little bit more flour and a quick knead. I don’t like to incorporate any unleavened flour, so I keep some Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 flour on hand for this. You can use regular flour if you’re not so picky.
If I’ve understood incorrectly, please let me know and I’ll try again. We’ll get this figured out, no worries! I’m mobile today but I’ll be back tonight. If you want to send a picture (should you have the energy to try again!), you can email me through the site at tessa@homesteadlady.com.
This looks so good! What a great combination of flavors!
Thanks so much for stopping by, Suzanne! Yes, it is indeed delicous, but then, I’m a sucker for pretty much any sourdough bread!
Hi! Would white/all purpose flour be ok to use?
Yes, you can use whatever flour you have. If you decide to toss in some wheat or other whole grain flour, reserve 1/2 cup of the water when mixing. After a few minutes of mixing/kneading, add the water if it looks dry.
If you’re new to sourdough, don’t be too frustrated if your first loaf is a little bit of a struggle. You’ll do great – just holler if you need anything!
Can I make this using oat flour instead of whole wheat flour?
You can replace one or two cups of wheat flour for oat flour but it won’t give the bread any structure. Oat flour, as you probably know, doesn’t contain gluten, which is the structure building element of grain breads.
If you want to use 100% oat flour, you could experiement with this recipe and simply add 1/2 cup of starter for flavor. You won’t need to let the dough ferment or rise like you would with a sourdough bread because it calls for baking powder and yogurt.
I’d be curious to know how it turns out, if you try it!
I made this replacing 1.5 cups whole wheat flour with 3/4 cup oat flour blend and 3/4 cup old fashioned oats. I was told it was too sour, but no complaints about texture.
Pictures at https://mewe.com/group/5edbb56f0f2ffc017647b1b4/show/67525c446d76176e31381f1b
Thanks for sharing your subs, so glad it worked out! To lessen sourness, try using starter right at its peak and be sure you’re not overfermenting. Having said that however, some taste buds are really sensitive to that tart sourdough flavor. Whereas I don’t even taste it anymore!
Made this following directions, pictures at https://mewe.com/group/5edbb56f0f2ffc017647b1b4/show/6726e9882543066d183fe047
This was the easiest sourdough I’ve made! My husband liked it better than the others!
So glad you made it work! Only Mewe users can see your link but they’ll appreciate the share.
Hi- do you use sourdough discard in this or does the starter need to be active?
Great question! You can use either. If your starter isn’t active, it may take a little longer to ferment and achieve rise. However, mixing a sourdough recipe – all that flour and water – is like one massive feeding for your starter. Often, recipes will call for active starter but it really doesn’t matter much because your starter will be fed with the ingredients in the recipe.
To learn a little more about this topic, you can visit our post on Discard Sandwhich Bread and scroll down a bit to the discard explanation section.
If your starter is super sleepy, like it’s been in the back of the fridge unfed for six months and has a lot of hooch, be sure to wake it back up by feeding it for three days in a row. Otherwise, you can use your starter in whatever state its in!
Let me know if you have other questions or need help!