Easy Sourdough Brioche Bread

Discover the easiest sourdough brioche recipe for a beautifully light and buttery texture. Perfect for indulgent mornings and special occasions!

I love brioche, it’s such a beautiful loaf of bread and has such sweet flavor and tender crumb, making it perfect for breakfast or brunch. I typically serve this with a little bit of fresh jam or make it into a french toast casserole. So, so good! My whole family loves it, and I’m sure yours will too!

Traditional brioche seems so intimidating, but I promise that this sourdough bread variation is simple enough for all home bakers and by using active sourdough starter you can skip the commercial yeast! To achieve the super soft texture brioche is known for, the dough is kneaded for longer than average. This makes it into a smooth buttery ball of dough. Plus it’s all done in a stand mixer, making this such an easy sourdough brioche bread recipe!

Like many sourdough recipes, this bread does best with an overnight bulk rise. Also,

Ingredients

It’s amazing how simple ingredients can come together to create such a delectable loaf of bread.

• Active Sourdough Starter: The starter will need to be bubbly and active.
• Milk: Whole milk is best for this recipe.
• Sugar: I prefer to use organic cane sugar, this loaf is lightly sweetened and delicious.
• Butter: This recipe uses lots of butter, I always bake with salted butter.
• Flour: Organic all purpose flour.
• Eggs: These will be used in the sourdough brioche dough as well as an egg wash.

Instructions

The Day Before

1. Prepare the Starter: Feed your sourdough starter a 50:50 flour to water ratio. Cover and set in a warm place to allow it to double in size and activate. This typically takes 3-6 hours.
2. Once the starter is active and bubbly, weigh out 175g of starter and put into the bowl of a stand mixer.
3. Prepare the Dough: Next, in a small saucepan heat the milk and sugar on low until brought to around 100 degrees. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
4. Add the sweetened milk and eggs to the sourdough starter and mix on low speed with your dough hook attachment until combined.
5. Slowly begin adding in flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Continue to mix on low/medium speed. Once roughly mixed, cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes to autolyze.
6. After autolyze, add salt and begin mixing on low/medium speed. As the dough is kneading, begin adding in cubed butter pieces.
7. Continue kneading until the dough is a smooth, silky, and passes the windowpane test; which typically takes 10 minutes of total kneading.
8. Transfer the dough to a large bowl and cover. Allow this to be proved overnight. Because of the high fat content of the dough, I prefer to keep it from ever getting overly warm. So proof at room temperature rather than in a warm proofer.

Baking Day

1. After the overnight bulk fermentation, your dough should have risen and doubled. Now it’s ready to be shaped.
2. Divide Dough: Dump the dough onto a floured work surface and divide into three equal pieces.
3. Shape the Dough: Then begin working each individual piece into a 12-14″ long coil by rolling on the worksurface. Do this for all three pieces of dough.
4. Next, you will braid the three coils. Once braided, tuck the ends under the braid and carefully place into a parchment paper lined loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 1 hour at room temperature.
5. Prepare to Bake: Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
6. In a small bowl whisk together one egg and 1 Tbsp. of water, using a pastry brush gently brush the egg wash over the loaf.
7. Place the bread into your preheated oven for 35-40 minutes. To check for doneness, the bread should be golden brown and have reached 180 degrees. Once complete, remove loaf from pan and cool on a cooling rack.
8. If the top of your bread is getting too brown during baking, cover with a piece of aluminum foil for the remainder of its baking time.

Bread Modifications

This delicious bread recipe can also be adapted to make brioche rolls, below are the steps that begin at shaping the dough.

3. Shaping the Dough: Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and on a floured surface, begin rolling each into a tight ball.

4. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet, add egg wash, and bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

You’ll note that I do recommend reducing the temperature to only 350 degrees for the rolls. They cook more quickly than the loaf, and after baking you’ll have perfect little sourdough brioche buns ready for hamburgers or sandwiches.

If you loved this recipe, check out these

Sourdough Brioche French Toast Casserole

Sourdough Granola

Banana Coconut Muffins

Cheers, Rose!