Simple, Cozy Sourdough Cinnamon Bread: the Best Breakfast Toast Loaf

You’ve had sourdough, and you’ve had cinnamon toast (I hope!). And you’ve probably had cinnamon rolls. So you know how absolutely cozy, warm, and nostalgic cinnamon-flavored bread things can be. But have you had artisan sourdough cinnamon bread?

If not, you’re in for a treat if you try this recipe! A sweet, spicy smell of cinnamon and the warm, yeasty smell of fresh bread. This recipe is an absolute aroma bomb in the best way possible!

The cinnamon gets mixed into the dough, which means it is evenly flavored throughout each slice of bread. The bread is tangy and slightly salty. And also just barely sweet and just slightly spicy (thanks to a bit of sugar and the cinnamon). And the crust is chewy and golden.

Basically, eat it plain, toasted (our favorite!), slathered in butter, baked into a French Toast Casserole… You just can’t go wrong with this bread!

Why Sourdough Cinnamon Bread?

OK, if you’re alive and old enough to be on the internet reading blog posts with recipes in them, you’re probably aware of the hype around sourdough.

It’s supposed to be better for you than fast acting yeast. It’s supposed to be better for your glycemic load. And easier to absorb nutrients.

And whether those benefits are supported by scientific evidence or not, my personal observation is that sourdough bread just TASTES better. Especially when it is made by hand, the old fashioned way, by someone who is attentive to taste and texture and participating in this ancient art form of feeding people we love.

Which is why the only bread I’ve made in YEARS is sourdough bread. And we make and consume a lot of bread in my family! Because it tastes darn good. And life is just too short to eat bad bread.

You’re going to love this bread recipe if you love sourdough and cinnamon. With the classic tang of sourdough, and the warmth of cinnamon, there are some beautiful flavors going on in that chewy-crusted, moist-and-bubbly interior loaf.

This recipe calls for 1/2 whole wheat flour, minimal sugar, and no added preservatives or weird chemicals. Which means you can feel good about indulging in this delicious treat!

Ingredients for Sourdough Cinnamon Bread

Simple is the goal around here, friends! And I try to make that happen in my recipes just as much as the rest of my life.

This sourdough cinnamon bread is going to require seven basic ingredients:

• whole wheat flour (for fiber and nutrients)
• all purpose flour (to help the bread be a bit lighter and rise nicely)
• water (for liquid!)
• active sourdough starter (nice and bubbly)
• salt (I like pink himalayan salt)
• sugar (I use raw cane sugar)
• cinnamon (because, spices are the spice of life, right?!)

How to Make Sourdough Cinnamon Bread Dough

Since this is a sourdough loaf, it’s going to take a bit of time to rise. Longer than your standard fast-acting yeast. That’s OK – just plan for it!

Step 1: Mix your flour and water. Let it sit and autolyse. That’s the fancy word for letting all the flour particles get hydrated by the water while it rests. Since this recipe has whole wheat flour, you’ll want to let it autolyse for at least 30 minutes.

Step 2: Add in your starter, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Let it sit and start to ferment for 30 minutes.

Step 3: Begin your stretch and folds. You’ll do 3 of them 30 minutes apart. And then another 3 stretch and folds another 15 minutes apart.

Step 4: After all the stretch and folds, let the dough sit and bulk ferment. This is the first rise. It is called “bulk ferment.” This is when the dough ferments and rises as one big whole. I let the dough bulk ferment in the mixing bowl where I mixed up the dough to minimize dishes that need to be washed. This bulk ferment will usually take 8-12 hours, depending on the temperature of your house. You can let it rise longer than that by slowing down the rise process in the fridge.

Step 5: Punch down or otherwise work the dough so most of the air pockets are released. Then shape the dough into its loaf to rise prior to baking. This second rise is called “proofing.” I let the dough proof (usually much faster) inside the dutch oven where I will bake it. (Although you can do this process in the fridge for a much longer time if needed)

Step 6: Bake, cool, and enjoy!

Things to Consider Regarding Time for Rising Your Dough

Temperature is going to be key while bulk fermenting the dough. A cold house = slower rise time. A hot house = faster rise time.

If you have central heat and you already make sourdough bread, you can probably skip over this section. Your home is likely kept close to the same temperature all the time. And if you already make sourdough, you are familiar with your home’s rise time.

However, if you, like me, do not have central heat and you experience quite different temperatures in your home depending on the time of day and the season of the year, then these things might be helpful to estimate your rising time.

The Starter Test:

I keep my starter inside my fridge 99% of the time. It is well established and used regularly, so it is pretty robust. Typically, I pull the starter out of the fridge when I mix the water and flour to autolyse.

I give the starter a good stir with a butter knife (usually it has a little hooch on top of it that I just mix in), and then add 1 Tbsp of whole wheat flour. I mix it up well and leave it on the counter for the 30 minutes. Then I stir it again just before adding it to the water and flour mixture.

If the starter has produced a good number of bubbles on the surface and it is a bit bubbly inside the structure of the dough when I stir it that second time, I know the dough will likely rise at a fairly rapid rate. UNLESS the temperature plummets just after I finish the stretch and folds.

If the starter is only minimally bubbly and not airy inside the dough structure, then I know it will probably be a bit of a slower process.

For a fast rise time, it’ll be 6-8 hours. For a slow rise time, it could be 10-12 hours, and I’ve even had it be 14-16 hours when it is really cold in our house!

The Stretch and Fold Test:

Another way I gauge rise time is how the dough looks and feels while I’m doing the stretch and folds.

If the dough is visibly starting to grow or starting to develop large, visible air bubbles in it (in the vicinity of 1 inch/2.5 cm’s in diameter) while it rests between each stretch and fold, then I know it is rising relatively rapidly.

If I don’t observe or feel any large air bubbles while I’m doing the stretch and folds, I know it will likely be a slower rise time.

And if the dough doesn’t seem to grow visibly AT ALL between stretch and folds, and barely relaxes during the rest time, I know it will likely be on the longer end of the rise time.

What to Expect from Different Home Temperatures:

If your house is cold or gets cold during the dough’s rising time, it will likely slow down the rising process. So if you’re making your dough before you go to bed, and it is winter in your home and your house will get cold before the morning, you can expect that your dough will likely rise minimally over night. It will still need to have some time in the morning or when the house gets warmer.

If your house is hot or will get hot during the dough’s proofing time, it will likely speed up the rising process. So if you’re making your dough at night before you go to bed and your house stays hot all night, it will likely be ready to bake first thing in the morning.

If you have a cold house and need to get your dough to rise on the faster side, you can consider warming up your oven just slightly. Then turn the oven off, turn on a proofing light (if you have one) and let your dough rise there. Or you could find some other spot that stays a bit warmer in your house (such as a hot water cylinder cupboard).

And if you’re making sourdough in the summer and you’re concerned the dough will rise too much overnight, you can always pop it in the fridge just before you go to bed to slow the rise WAY down. Then pull it out in the morning and let it finish its bulk ferment at that time.

Baking the Sourdough Cinnamon Bread to Perfection

I use a dutch oven to bake my sourdough loaf. If you have one available to you, that’s what I recommend. The crust comes out chewy and golden, and the interior is moist and tender.

Of course, if you don’t have a dutch oven, you can still make sourdough bread! You’ll just have to get a bit more creative to provide the steam needed for the ideal crust.

I typically bake my bread at 200°C fan forced for 65 minutes. Unlike some sourdough bread recipes, I typically leave the lid of my dutch oven on for the entire baking time. You don’t have to – you can take the lid off for the last 10 minutes if you want to get more crunch in the crust.

The down side of leaving the lid on is that my crust doesn’t get quite so crunchy. But the up side is that my kids will actually eat the crust! If it is too crunchy, they struggle to masticate it.

I know the bread is done when it is golden brown on the crust when I check it, and it sounds slightly hollow when I tap on it.

How to Store Sourdough Cinnamon Bread

Since I live in a subtropical region, we have a lot of humidity and a LOT of mold!. As a result, I keep my sourdough bread in the refrigerator in a large plastic zip bag once it has cooled.

It is rare that a bread loaf sits around longer than 2-3 days in our house, so the risk of mold is minimal. But I prefer to refrigerate it so I know it isn’t going to go moldy! In the fridge, it will keep just fine for 5-7 days.

My loaf is too large to fit in a zip bag whole. So I typically cut it in half down the middle after it has cooled. Then I turn the loaf with the crust up and the cut side down on the cutting board to slice it.

If you want to freeze this loaf, you can pop the whole loaf or half of the loaf in a large zip bag and toss it into the freezer. It will keep fine for at least a month.

But for added convenience, I suggest slicing the bread prior to freezing. For the most user friendly freezing method, slice you loaf and lay out the slices on a baking sheet to freeze individually. Then bag up the slices and store in the freezer.

You’ll have easy-to-pull-out individual slices that you can pop in the toaster for a quick piece of delicious sourdough cinnamon bread!

Serving Ideas for Sourdough Cinnamon Bread

Sourdough cinnamon bread is delicious plain. Seriously! Let it cool enough that you can slice it without smashing it, and it is delicious fresh!

But, of course, it is even MORE delicious with butter because everything is better with butter! Slather it up with butter when it is fresh for a simple, tasty snack.

It is also fantastic toasted, buttered, and enjoyed with a cup of coffee or a strong black tea.

We enjoy it as a starch with our breakfast. For example, it pairs beautifully with my high protein, easy, cheesy sheet pan scrambled eggs.

It is also a delicious, easy dessert: toast and slather with butter and some cinnamon and sugar to increase the sweetness.

Or, if it is winter where you are, this bread goes great with cold weather meals that have that warming-cozy spice profile already subtly present in this bread (like my chunky pumpkin soup recipe or my creamy vegetable lentil soup recipe).

Common Troubleshooting Tips for Sourdough Cinnamon Bread:

The dough seems really loose/runny:

This is a high hydration loaf, so the dough will feel quite loose, especially after it has rested between stretch and folds.

You can increase your stretch and folds from four stretch and folds (per stretch and fold session) to six or eight if you’re concerned that it is still too lax. This will help the gluten develop more, giving the dough more structure.

Be sure to get all six sessions of stretch and folds in if you are concerned that it seems too loose and runny. The dough should become more firm after each stretch and fold session, and it will more quickly get to that firm feeling the more stretch and fold sessions you do.

The dough didn’t rise to double in size:

This could be a couple things:

• You starter might not be active/robust enough to raise your loaf. Is it still relatively new, or has it endured a prolonged period of time recently without being fed and therefore entering more of a dormant state?
• The temperature in your house might be too cold to get your sourdough out of hybernation. If you ambient temperature is well below about 75°F (24°C) for the bulk ferment portion of the process, it might just be too cold. You’ll need to figure out a way to create a small area where the dough can be warmer for its fermentation process.
• You may have added too much cinnamon. Cinnamon has antimicrobial properties, which means if there is too much, it can interfere with the fermentation process of the sourdough. As much as I love a strong cinnamon flavor, I wouldn’t recommend increasing the cinnamon in this recipe.

My Sourdough Cinnamon Bread turned out dense:

Again, this could be for a couple reasons:

• Did you complete all the stretch and folds, on the timelines given? This will help develop the gluten strands, which give the bread structure, allowing it to trap the gas into little bubbles as the flour ferments.
• Did the dough rise to about double in size during the first bulk ferment? If it did not, it could be an indication that your sourdough isn’t quite active enough (either from being too cold or from the starter not being active)
• Did you allow the dough to proof before baking? I’ve had dense loaves from rushing this process!
• Did the dough OVER rise – to triple or more in size, and then start to fall? If this happens, the gluten structures begin to break down, which results in dense dough that can’t hold the gas bubbles anymore.

You’ll Love Sourdough Cinnamon Bread, so Get Your Mixing Bowl!

This sourdough cinnamon bread recipe makes a warm, cozy-smelling, chewy-crusted loaf of artisan sourdough bread that is delicious toasted and served up as part of breakfast!

Of course, it is also tasty in many other applications. The subtle sweetness and spice profile is a fun twist on a classic sourdough loaf.

Give this recipe a try and let me know how it turned out for you! What did you serve it with? Did it make your house smell absolutely divine? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below!

Yield: 12 slices

Sourdough Cinnamon Bread Loaf

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Tangy Sourdough, chewy crust, moist interior, and subtly sweet and spicy, this Sourdough Cinnamon Bread Loaf is a delicious twist to classic sourdough loaf.

Prep Time 12 hours

Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Total Time 13 hours 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups (324 g) all purpose flour
• 2 cups (319 g) whole wheat flour + 1 Tbsp
• 2 cups (488 g) water
• 1/2 cup (140 g) active sourdough starter
• 1 Tbsp (18 g) salt
• 1 Tbsp (8 g) cinnamon
• 1/3 cup (60 g) sugar

Instructions

1. Take your starter out of the fridge, stir it, and add 1 Tbsp whole wheat flour. Leave on counter
2. Mix the four cups of flour and two cups of water in large mixing bowl until all flour has been incorporated.
3. All flour and water mixture to rest for 30 mins
4. Stir starter again, and measure 1/2 cup to add to flour and water mixture
5. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp salt, 1 Tbsp cinnamon, and 1/3 cup sugar over flour, water, and starter mixture
6. Mix flour, water, starter, salt, cinnamon, and sugar together with your fingers until everything is evenly incorporated and it has come together as a dough. It will be very moist
7. Cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes
8. Perform a stretch and fold of the dough
9. Cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes
10. Perform a second stretch and fold of the dough
11. Cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes
12. Perform a third stretch and fold of the dough
13. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes
14. Perform a fourth stretch and fold of the dough
15. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes
16. Perform a fifth stretch and fold of the dough
17. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes
18. Perform a sixth stretch and fold of the dough
19. Cover. Leave to bulk ferment (rise) until approximately doubled in size (overnight or approximately 8 hours, but will vary depending on your home's temperature)
20. Once dough has doubled, line dutch oven with baking paper
21. Gently press down dough, performing gentle stretch and folds, until all large air bubbles have escaped and dough is firm and compact again
22. Shape into ball, gently pulling edges of dough under to stretch the top of the dough and make it smooth
23. Gently place into center of dutch oven, on top of baking paper.
24. Cover and allow to proof (rise) for 60-90 minutes, or until dough has increased by about 60% Preheat oven during this time to 400°F Fan Forced (200°C)
25. Score bread, cover dutch oven with lid, and then place in center of oven
26. Bake for 65 minutes or until bread is golden and slightly hallow when tapped. If you desire crunchy crust, remove lid from dutch oven for last 15 minutes of baking time. Leave lid on if you prefer a more chewy, gentle crust.
27. Allow to cool completely before slicing

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

12

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 96Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 1mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 1gSugar: 0gProtein: 3g