If Taylor Swift is entering her sourdough era, so am I. This Cinnamon Sourdough Bread is everything and more.
The Swifties will love this Cinnamon Swirl Sourdough
Taylor Swift’s revelation of a deep sourdough baking obsession on the New Heights podcast with the Kelce brothers has NEVER felt more AHH?!?!? Surprising? Endearing? Relatable? And when she said, “girl, I’ve been on your blog” – it felt like a warm hug. Taylor, I’ve been to your concerts. Lifechanging!
Anyway!! What I do know is we are giving the girl what she asked for! A sourdough recipe, specifically cinnamon swirl, that makes the best toast with butter and flaky sea salt with a chai latte on a sunday morning or instead, a midnight snack.
As if Taylor didn’t have a community already, she just took hold of a whole new corner of the internet with the art of bread.
My Sourdough ~ Expertise ~
I’m no sourdough expert, but I sure do love it. Author’s note: Sydney, our Director of Ops here @ APOP, IS a sourdough queen. So for the Swifties out there, we need to thank Syd for starting her sourdough journey. Everyone echos: “Thank you, Syd!!!”
This recipe is a straight-forward ode to our girl Taylor. For the rest of the sourdough girlies out there slaving in the kitchen day and night, you’ll love this recipe. For the beginners, good luck : D
If sourdough bread recipes are a bit too intimidating and you’d instead like to try a quick bread, check out my Cinnamon Donut Bread.
Recipe Ingredients
- Sourdough Starter – We want it extra bubbly. See FAQs for getting a starter.
- Bead Flour – I use organic, unbleached. Unbleached is important to not kill the good bacterias in your starter. It’ll make it more resilient and easier to work with.
- Salt – A necessity in basic sourdough!
- Filling – For our cinnamon swirl, we will mix softened butter, brown sugar (or coconut sugar) and cinnamon.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Substitutions and Variations
- If you want Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough bread, simply sprinkle plump raisins on top of the cinnamon sugar mixture after you spread it over your bread dough.
How to Make This Recipe
1. Make the dough:
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the active sourdough starter with water and salt until combined.
- Add the flour and mix until a shaggy dough forms.
- Let the dough rest for 1 hour covered with a damp tea towel (autolyse).
2. Bulk fermentation:
- Perform 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds, spaced 30 minutes apart. (stretch and fold is just what it sounds like: Stretch the dough upward, fold in half, then give a quarter turn and repeat).
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 6 hours to overnight for the first rise, depending on room temperature, until doubled in size.
3. Prepare the filling
- In a small bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon until smooth.
4. Laminate and fill
- On a floured work surface, shape the dough into an approximately 8 × 12-inch rectangle, with the longer side closest to you.
- Spread ⅔ of the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly across the surface.
- Fold the bottom third of the rectangle up toward the center, then fold the top third down over it (like a letter).
- Spread the remaining cinnamon-butter mixture over the exposed long rectangle.
5. Shape the loaf
- Roll the dough up tightly, as if making a giant cinnamon roll, to form a large ball of dough.
- Use a gentle push-pull motion to create surface tension and round the ball without tearing the dough (to keep the cinnamon swirl from oozing out the sides of the dough).
- Place seam-side up into a flour-lined proofing basket.
- Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and refrigerate for the second rise. This should be at least 2 hours or overnight for a cold ferment.
6. Score and bake
- 1 hour before baking, place a Dutch oven (with lid) into the oven and preheat to 475°F (245°C).
- Flip dough from the basket onto a piece of parchment paper (seam side down) and rub any excess flour into the top of the dough so it’s in a smooth ball.
- Score deeply with a dough lame (a baking razor blade, but a sharp knife works, too) at an angle to help create an ear.
- Carefully remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven. Transfer the dough (using the parchment) into the pot.
- Place 4–6 ice cubes under the parchment paper and replace the lid.
- Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on at 475°, then 15 minutes with the lid off with the oven turned down to 400° or until the top is golden brown.
7. Let the bread cool for at least 1 hour before slicing. Enjoy!
PRO TIPS
There are a hundred baking blogs out there, way more qualified than me to give sourdough tips, but one thing you may not hear elsewhere: I don’t believe in sourdough discard!
No need for all of those discard recipes, you just need to be baking bread every 1-2 weeks. Here is my schedule:
- Start with 75 grams of starter (see FAQs on acquiring a starter).
- Saturday morning: Feed the starter by adding 75 grams water and 75 grams flour and leave on the counter to rise (the result is you ‘active’ starter).
- Saturday mid day: Make dough with 100-150 grams of the now active starter, which leaves you with ~75 grams remaining.
- Place starter back in the fridge until you are ready to bake with it again, next weekend. No ‘extras’ to discard! (if you need to you can push to 2 weeks in the fridge, I’ve never gone beyond this timeframe, but supposedly there are ways to ‘revive’ an inactive starter which I have not tried.)
Recipe FAQs
Honestly, I don’t think fresh sourdough lasts more than 3 days. If your family is anything like mine, however, we’re feral for this bread and it disappears quick enough that ‘freshness’ isn’t a huge concern.
That said, I do have a few storage tips:
-Only slice off what you’re eating in that moment. It’s convenient to slice the whole loaf at once, but more air exposure = faster it dries out.
-Store in a completely airtight container whether that be a large tupperware, freezer bag or bread box. Let it cool COMPLETELY before storing as we don’t want to trap moisture and get a soggy crust.
-Store at room temperature and never in the fridge. It speeds up staling.
Absolutely! Freezing your sourdough cinnamon bread is a great option for longer storage if you won’t be able to finish the loaf right away. I recommend slicing prior to freezing and storing in a large ziplock. Then, you can just grab a slice or two and heat in the toaster or under the broiler with minimal effort.
You don’t! LOL. It’s a lot of work and there are other blogs that’ll help you on that journey, but I have not made my own sourdough starter and I won’t try to tell you how to either.
What you do instead:
– Acquire an active starter from a friend or family member who is on the sourdough grind. It’s likely there’s is nice and strong if they’ve been baking a while! All they’ll need to do is an extra feed to be able to share some with you.
– Ask a local bakery! This is such a hack that not enough people know about. Most bakeries that sell homemade sourdough are willing to give you some of their starter and it’s likely super strong. Just come with your own jar and ask! They will more than likely say yes:)
My thoughts on sourdough tools:
– Kitchen Scale: For sure yes, for the right flour to water ratio. I’ve never been able to get a loaf right using measuring cups.
– Bench Scraper: Helpful for shaping, but for sure not necessary. I typically use my hands.
– Banneton basket: Nice to have but a floured tea towel in a bowl works in a pinch.
– Dough lame: Gives clean scoring, but a sharp knife will do.
– Dutch oven: Need! Or an equivalent like a cast iron with a lid or I use my ceramic Caraway pot with the lid.
Serving suggestions
Enjoy your sourdough cinnamon swirl bread toasted with a slab of butter and flaky sea salt, it makes a delicious breakfast bread. Even a spread of cream cheese is a tasty option Because it goes stale after a few days, it makes FABULOUS French Toast. Try it in my Berry French Toast Bake or as the base for this Churro French Toast.
More Recipes You’ll Love
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Cinnamon Sourdough Bread
Equipment
- Kitchen scale
- Large mixing spoon
- Banneton (bread basket)
- parchment
- Dutch oven or ceramic pot with lid (I use my Caraway pot)
Ingredients
- 150 grams bubbly starter, fed 4-12 hours before mixing dough
- 450 grams bread flour, organic, unbleached
- 280 grams water
- 10 grams salt
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1.5 tbsp cinnamon
Instructions
Make the dough
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the active sourdough starter with water and salt until combined.
- Add the flour and mix until a shaggy dough forms.
- Let the dough rest for 1 hour covered with a damp tea towel (autolyse).
Bulk fermentation
- Perform 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds, spaced 30 minutes apart. (stretch and fold is just what it sounds like: Stretch the dough upward, fold in half, then give a quarter turn and repeat).
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 6 hours to overnight for the first rise, depending on room temperature, until doubled in size.
Prepare the filling
- In a small bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon until smooth.
Laminate and fill
- On a floured work surface, shape the dough into an approximately 8 × 12-inch rectangle, with the longer side closest to you.
- Spread ⅔ of the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly across the surface.
- Fold the bottom third of the rectangle up toward the center, then fold the top third down over it (like a letter).
- Spread the remaining cinnamon-butter mixture over the exposed long rectangle.
Shape the loaf
- Roll the dough up tightly, as if making a giant cinnamon roll, to form a large ball of dough.
- Use a gentle push-pull motion to create surface tension and round the ball without tearing the dough (to keep the cinnamon swirl from oozing out the sides of the dough).
- Place seam-side up into a flour-lined proofing basket.
- Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and refrigerate for the second rise. This should be at least 2 hours or overnight for a cold ferment.
Preheat the oven
- 1 hour before baking, place a Dutch oven (with lid) into the oven and preheat to 475°F (245°C).
Score and bake
- Flip the dough onto a piece of parchment paper and rub any excess flour into the top of the dough so it’s in a smooth ball.
- Score deeply with a dough lame (a baking razor blade, but a sharp knife works, too) at an angle to help create an ear.
- Carefully remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven. Transfer the dough (using the parchment) into the pot.
- Place 4–6 ice cubes under the parchment paper and replace the lid.
- Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on at 475°, then 15 minutes with the lid off with the oven turned down to 400° or until the top is golden brown.
Cool
- Let the bread cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.
Nutrition
Video
Notes
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If you’re using MyFitnessPal, search ‘A Paige Of Positivity’ and find Cinnamon Swirl Sourdough calories and nutrition facts. Disclaimer: for most accurate macronutrients and caloric breakdown, it is recommended that you input each ingredient into your MyFitnessPal food diary.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. It’s my passion to create dishes that can be shared with others. Tell me something you loved or just say hi!
Made the dough last night and then just baked it this afternoon. The bread itself It was fluffy and had an amazing rise and perfect crumb. The only downside was that this was my first time doing inclusions of any kind. I guess I didn’t fold and roll correctly. I scored it like I usually do but the ear opened up and exposed some veins of cinnamony goodness and most of the filling layers ended up concentrated toward the top. The texture and flavor are a total winner though. So I’ll be making this again and again. So happy to have found this. I need to study up on how to roll the boules to get the best distribution of filling. Thank you for the delicious recipe – it’s practically perfection!!! I’m so excited to improve my execution!
This is a GLOWING review!! thank you so much 🙂
This recipe is insanely good – the sourdough is so fresh and I had to stop myself from consuming the entire thing in one go around!!
After I had a slice of this bread, I went out and bought the tools and Dutch oven pot so I can also create this masterpiece. Bread is enjoyable, but his one is a real treat! I now have my starter kit and can’t wait to bake!
incredible! syd did such a great job on this recipe & I reaped the benefits 🙂
cant stop wont stop with the sourdough!!!!
Will try tomorrow. Smells good but came out so burnt! I should have known better as I usually lower the heat to 400 for the last 15. Will have to try again but caution about cooking for 475 for the full 45 minutes.
Ahh, thanks for the review, Kasia! We will make a note on this – it’s so tough when ovens/pots vary. I hope it still turns out for you!
Made this bread and it was amazing! How should I store it for the next few days-if it lasts that long!
Bread is delicious! I am new to sourdough bread making and the recipe was easy to follow. I basically added the cinnamon/sugar/butter step to the bread recipe I use. I did not have dark brown sugar on hand so I used light brown instead.
This was a pretty good recipe to follow and DELICIOUS- had to adjust to texas temps, and BF was only about 4 hours. House is about 70-72.
I didn’t love how hard it is to spread (dough vs butter cinnamon sugar mix) so I think I will try to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar, then grate the butter on top. Experiments. haha.
I also did 475 but lowered to 350 in the uncovered time, and top still came out slightly burned likely because of the cinnamon sugar peeking through the score. Going to try and thicken up when I spread before inclusions so its not close to the edge 🙂 Over all amazing! Rise was great!
Could I switch out AP flour for the bread flour here?
Hey Courtney, we don’t recommend that unfortunately! It needs to be bread flour. It gives the bread a stronger gluten network allowing it to rise better and essential to the overall texture. Luckily, bread flour is found in most grocery stores right next to the all purpose flour. Hope this helps!
I feel dumb but can you clarify the bit about ice cubes? Do they go in under the parchment paper that the loaf is on? So directly into the Dutch oven? Or are they on the sides? I’m confused.
Hi Cassie! The ice goes directly in your pot, between the parchment and the pot. So not directly touching the loaf, but in the pot! This helps create steam in the pot when you put the lid on. Hope this helps!
Thank you so much! Sorry for the dumb question!
I have made your delicious bread so many times and gifted it. I use vegan butter and it is just the best breakfast treat! Thank you!
this is lovely to hear, thank you, Blake!
I am a long time sourdough baker. I’d love to see new people getting into sourdough. It’s just so much healthier for us. I make all of my own bread because I have a Double MTHFR mutation and I cannot consume folic acid. This is a great recipe it’s super easy, the only thing I would do is I would increase the recipe by 1/3 to make a larger loaf. The loaf is not quite large enough for me. I like a little bit bigger loaf, but this was delicious. Great recipe
Thanks for the comment Vicki! We’re glad you loved it🥰
Still in the oven but looks and smells amazing! I thing though. 1st time trying inclusions. New to sourdough. It was extremely liquidy this morning. Had to dump out liquid butter/cinnamon mixture before baking. Is that normal? And while baking quite a bit of sticky liquid underneath.
Hey Charlene! A little liquid is normal, but you don’t want so much oozing out that the entire dough ball is wet. It’s likely your butter was a little too soft when spreading onto the dough and/or your dough was a bit too warm and melted the butter. You should still be fine to bake as is, but next time you could put the cinnamon sugar/butter mixture in the fridge for a few to let it harden a bit extra before spreading onto your dough. Hope this helps. Enjoy!!
I like the ratios here and the flavor is wonderful. I have made 2x and want to ask if you have a remedy for top getting too dark. That cinnamon bursts through (fabulous) but then tends to burn.
Hey Kimberly! So glad you love! a couple of tips you can try: When spreading your filling, leave at least a 1-inch border around the edges of the dough. This ensures a clean “dough-to-dough” seal when you roll and pinch the seams. You can also try the tin foil dome technique when you take the lid off your dutch oven — when the top reaches your desired color, loosely drape a sheet of aluminum foil over your loaf—folding it in the center to create a raised peak—and gently crimp it to the edges of your pan or Dutch oven so it protects the top from direct heat without touching the sticky sugar
Do you have to do the ice? I’ve made many other loaves and just do the lid off for the majority, off for the rest. Just wondering since I’ve never used the ice cube method.
Hey Dawn! You definitely don’t have to use the ice if you get good results without it. I find my dutch oven doesn’t have the best seal and it helps trap in steam to give more spring and a thinner, crispier crust. Enjoy!!
Love this recipe, I want to add raisins, should I add during stretch and folds and do you think I have to adjust any amounts of flour or water????
Hey Susie! We recommend to add the raisins at the same time as the cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture. Just sprinkle a hefty amount in before shaping! No need to adjust flour & water ratios. Good luck!
Question: What do you mean by “3 sets of 4 stretch and fold”? Am I doing 3 stretch and folds 30 minutes apart? OR 4?
Hey Karen! Sorry for the confusion! For one ‘set’ of stretch & folds, stretch the dough upward and fold down 4x (to make a complete circle when you turn the bowl 90 degrees between each fold). Do this process 3x each spaced 30 minutes apart.
I’m followed the instructions almost to a tee and it’s both beautiful and delicious! The only thing I changed was I only did 10 minutes without the lid as it was getting pretty brown and I did not want to burn it.