Very soft sourdough bread machine sandwich bread

This amazingly soft bread can be made entirely in a bread machine, from refreshing the starter to the finished product.

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First dough
Refreshing starter in the bread machine

80g natural yeast
80g strong Canadian flour
40-50g cold water (depending on the consistency of your natural yeast). 

Add all the ingredients to the bread machine pan and start the pizza (or dough) programme. The dough should result quite soft.
Proof for 6 hours or until the dough had tripled in volume.

Second dough

Remove the bread pan from the bread machine and add:

300g strong Canadian flour
2 eggs
60 g cold water
40 g sunflower oil
1 tbsp running honey
A pinch of salt

Place the pan back in the bread machine and start the Pizza (or Dough) programme until the dough forms a ball (usually 5 minutes).

Remove the pan from the bread machine and add:

100g strong Canadian flour
50g cold water (or yogurt/kefir for a softer consistency)

Place the pan back in the bread machine. This set of ingredients will lay on top of the dough as the bread machine runs the selected programme.



This is the time to select the next bread machine programme: there are 2 methods depending on your bread machine manufacturer.

Method 1 – if you have a French Bread programme.

Start the French Bread programme, which usually last for 6 hours, with a time offset of 5 hours (to allow the second dough to rise before working it again)

Method 2 – if your bread machine doesn’t have a programme with a rise of at least 3.5/4 hours.

Start the Pizza (or Dough) programme with a time offset of 5 hours (to allow the second dough to rise before working it again).
When the bread machine has finished its programme (usually notified by a beeping sound) wait for at least 4 hours until starting the Bake Only programme and set the baking time to 1 hour and 5 minutes.

Once the bread has finished baking remove it from the bread machine pane and cool it on a wire rack.