A simple soaked sandwich bread recipe using kefir as the soaking medium that is light on the stomach, digestible, easy to make, soft, and delicious!
Making traditionally prepared bread by soaking flour overnight (as opposed to modern, difficult-to-digest yeasted bread) can be a bit tricky to master.
No one wants to waste quality ingredients not to mention precious time on failed attempts!
To make a long story short, it took me a little trial and error to get the recipe to work, but the results are awesome!
You can even slice the loaf for soaked sandwich bread!
*Note that the texture of soaked bread is quite a bit softer than sprouted or sourdough sandwich bread.
Please note that I only use einkorn flour to make this loaf, so if you want to try making it with another type of flour, it may take a couple of attempts to get it exactly right.
Why do I prefer einkorn as the best form of wheat?
Einkorn is the only form of nonhybridized wheat on the planet and contains good gluten (the kind many people are NOT allergic to!).
My friend Cathi who shared this recipe with me uses spelt flour. Based on our joint experience, it should work the very first try with either einkorn or spelt.
Other types of flour may take a bit of trial and error on your part to perfect.
Preparation Tips
Please note that you must soak the flour for this recipe using raw, homemade kefir made with live grains (not powdered starter).
**The dough does not rise as well if you soak the flour using raw yogurt, clabbered raw milk or buttermilk. The recipe also does not work well with plain store-bought kefir, likely because commercial versions are not fermented properly.
I recommend using unsprouted flour for this recipe. The texture turns out better. Sprouted flour is best reserved for recipes where the flour is not soaked.
Do not substitute raw honey instead of the sucanat as cooking honey is not healthy.
Once you’ve made your loaf, be sure to save the crusts! You can make homemade breadcrumbs with them!
If you love this soaked bread, try these other recipes that use soaked flour too!
- Soaked Devil’s Food Cake (yogurt works great for this recipe)
- How to Make Soaked Bread in a Bread Machine (any fermented dairy medium)
- Soaked Pancakes (dairy-free)
Soaked Sandwich Bread Recipe
Easy soaked bread recipe that can be sliced and used for sandwiches as well.
Ingredients
- 6 cups flour freshly ground einkorn or spelt recommended
- 3 cups raw kefir
- 2 Tbsp butter preferably grassfed and organic
- 1 1/2 Tbsp sucanat or organic brown cane sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
Instructions
-
Mix 3 cups of flour and 3 cups of kefir well, cover with a clean cloth and let sit on the kitchen counter for 12-24 hours. After soaking, the dough should be liquid-y and very bubbly.
-
Add baking soda, sweetener, coconut oil or butter and 3 more cups of flour. Stick to 6 cups of flour and don’t add more even if tempted to do so based on consistency of the dough.
-
Mix well for 3-4 minutes. The resulting dough should be soft and easily workable with your hands.
-
Divide loaf into 2 … put in 2 buttered loaf pans (these are what I use) or make 1 huge loaf with a single large loaf pan.
-
Let the pan(s) sit lightly covered with a clean cloth for another 12 hours on the kitchen counter. The dough will rise nicely in the pan(s) so allow for enough room at the top or it will spill over the sides.
-
Bake at 350 ºF (177 ºC) for 30 minutes for 2 smaller loaves and 350 ºF (177 ºC) for 55 minutes for 1 large loaf of soaked bread. Check that a knife inserted in the center comes out clean to ensure that the bread is done.
-
Once cooled, slice into sandwich slices. Enjoy immediately and refrigerate what will not be used up within 24 hours.
Would this work with water kefir instead of milk kefir?
Water kefir would *not* work with this recipe.
Is there no salt by design or in error ? Thank you for the recipe ….have the first part “brewing”
This recipe is fantastic!! Thank you for perfecting it for us… I make a large jar of fresh kefir everyday, with my lovely raw farm milk, and am always looking for new ways to use it. Sad that all the beneficial bacteria gets destroyed during the baking, but great that the fermentation beforehand does such a great job of making the wheat so much more digestable, and cuts out the necessity for using yeast. I don’t have access to fresh ground wheat or gluten free flours, so I just used store bought whole wheat flour, and the results were fantastic. I also include flax seed and sunflower seeds during the fermentation process, so I have the added flavour and nutrition from the them. Thank you!
The reason homemade kefir works is because it naturally contains several strains of good yeast. In order to sell kefir commercially, the yeast has to be removed.
Why sugar of any kind?
Feel free to leave it out, but the bread doesn’t rise quite as well. Also, it is a very small amount of sugar! Less then 2 tsp (9 grams per loaf). It is going to be less than a gram per slice.
Bake at 350 F (177 C) for 30 minutes for 2 loaves and 350 F (177 C) for 55 minutes for 1 loaf of soaked bread.
Please clarify the baking times, I don’t understand why two loaves take half the time of one loaf.
The reason the baking time is longer for 1 loaf is because it is larger than 2 smaller loaves which will bake more quickly.
can you use coconut milk kefir instead of raw milk kefir?
No, that won’t work with this recipe.
Sarah, I wanted to thank you so much for your effort and your dedication in teaching us the traditional way of baking bread. This recipe has become a staple in our home. I routinely bake the two loaves and I am thrilled when my son who can tolerate this weak gluten, asks for more. I would like to try to use my iron cast Dutch oven. Could I just put the dough to proof in a bowl instead of the two loaf pans? Could I then turn the dough into the already preheated iron cast Dutch oven? Will this work to create a round shape instead? Have you tried it?
I have not tried it. It may work just fine. Let us know how it turns out!
I’m new to all of this, soak the milk with the grain, what keeps the milk form spoiling?
The milk used is raw … raw milk doesn’t spoil. It clabbers. Do not use pasteurized milk with this recipe or you will make yourself sick.
Did you soak and dry the einkorn before you ground it?
You don’t soak and dry einkorn berries before grinding. You soak the flour before baking. Or, if you don’t want to soak the flour, you can use sprouted einkorn berries and grind those.