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Sourdough

Sourdough Banana Bread with Sprouted Rye and Maple Syrup

I let my sourdough banana bread ferment and rise for hours. This is the best sourdough banana bread recipe, so flavorful and easy to digest!

Prep: 30 Minutes
Cook: 1 Hour
Total: 5 hours 30 minutes
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Recipe Index | Ferment | Sourdough

Sourdough Banana Bread with Sprouted Rye and Maple Syrup

I let my sourdough banana bread ferment and rise for hours. This is the best sourdough banana bread recipe, so flavorful and easy to digest!

Sourdough Banana Bread

While many banana bread recipes are more like cake, my sourdough banana bread is more like soft sweet bread.

For this recipe, you want to use brown sugar and maple syrup for the best flavor. The pure vanilla extract with maple syrup, brown sugar, and rye flour creates a fabulous caramel flavor.

a loaf of reddish brown sourdough banana bread sliced, with the inside texture showing.

I like to whip softened grass-fed butter with organic maple syrup to spread on a slice for a perfect sweet snack.

My Sourdough Banana Bread Recipe

Here are all the ingredients and supplies you need to make this fermented sourdough banana bread:

  • salt
  • chia seeds
  • baking Soda
  • all-purpose flour
  • rye flour (I used sprouted rye flour, but any rye flour will do)
  • Cinnamon
  • brown sugar
  • Sourdough Starter
  • warm water or milk
  • ripe banana
  • coconut oil
  • maple syrup 
  • vanilla extract

You will also need:

  • 9×5 loaf pan
  • parchment paper
sourdough banana bread with streusel topping and bananas on top

Making Banana Bread with Sourdough Starter

Most sourdough banana bread and zucchini bread recipes don’t allow any rise time. Instead, most people treat it like a sourdough discard recipe that goes straight into the oven after combining the ingredients.

I let my sourdough banana bread rise. Allowing the dough to ferment and rise has two main benefits.

First, the flavors and textures develop so nicely. Second, giving the dough time to ferment and rise makes the bread easier to digest. I have trouble digesting fructans, which bananas and rye flour contain a lot of.

When sourdough ferments, the starters’ microbes pre-digest all the fructans in the banana and flour, so it gives me no trouble. You can learn more about the digestibility of sourdough by clicking here.

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Sourdough

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5 from 2 reviews

Sourdough Banana Bread with Sprouted Rye and Maple Syrup

I let my sourdough banana bread ferment and rise for hours. This is the best sourdough banana bread recipe, so flavorful and easy to digest!

  • Prep: 30 Minutes
  • Cook: 1 Hour
  • Total Time: 5 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 Tablespoons Chia Seeds (optional)
  • 1 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1 Cup Rye Flour
  • 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 Cup Sourdough Starter, active and bubbly
  • 1/2 Cup warm water or milk
  • 1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract
  • 1 Mashed Ripe Banana
  • 1/4 Cup Coconut Oil, Melted
  • 3/4 Cup Maple Syrup 

Instructions

  1. Line a 5″ by 9″ loaf pan on all sides with parchment paper. 
  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the chia seeds, salt, baking soda, flour, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Mix until evenly combined. 
  3. In a separate bowl, combine the sourdough starter, warm milk, vanilla extract, ripe banana, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Whisk until the mixture is uniform. (note that the sourdough starter is a wet ingredient)
  4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold in until evenly combined. The mixture will be wet and stretchy.
  5. Transfer the mixture to the parchment paper-lined loaf pan. Using a spatula, spread the mixture into the pan evenly. Top with banana slices. 
  6. Allow rising at a warm temperature for 4 hours. 
  7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  8. Bake for 1 hour, rotating the pan halfway through.
  9. Allow to cool for 30 minutes, then slice.  
  10. Store in an airtight container.

Notes

Optional Streusel Topping

  • 2 Tablespoons Cold Butter
  • 1 Tablespoon Flour
  • 2 Tablespoons Sugar

For the streusel topping (optional), combine the sugar, flour and butter. Sprinkle ontop of the loaf right before it goes in the oven. 

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a 5-star review below if you loved it! Tag @cultured.guru on Instagram

 

Nutrition information is auto-calculated and estimated as close as possible. We are not responsible for any errors. We have tested the recipe for accuracy, but your results may vary.

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Kaitlynn Fenley Author, Educator, Food Microbiologist
Kaitlynn is a food microbiologist and fermentation expert teaching people how to ferment foods and drinks at home.
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  1. Ada
    01|22|2020

    I am very excited to try this bread but wondered if you ever tried it with just the starter and no baking soda?

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      01|22|2020

      I’ve never made it without it, but I’m sure you can and it will come out fine!

      Reply
  2. Sharon
    11|04|2020

    Can you just use reg flour and no rye four? I want o make this or the carrot one but I don’t have the flour.

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      11|04|2020

      yes, you can use regular all-purpose flour.

      Reply
  3. Brittany
    04|15|2022

    Do you think you could leave the batter in the pan overnight for a long ferment ?

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      04|18|2022

      I’ve never tried it overnight, but it should work. It would probably be best to do the overnight ferment in the fridge.

      Reply
  4. Flavia
    10|02|2022

    I baked this today and this is absolutely amazing yummy tasty banana bread!
    A few changes I made: I decreased the amount of maple syrup to 1/2 cup and added more banana (total 3 super ripe bananas) and for my taste could go lower in sweetness!
    I could not bake it yesterday, so I put it into the fridge over night. As it did not really grow in the fridge, I left it at room temperature for a couple of hours and baked it.
    Next time I might add walnuts!

    Reply
  5. Polly
    10|20|2022

    Oh I just LOVE this banana bread so much. My whole family enjoys it. So far I’ve tried this recipe and the fire cider recipe from cultured guru and I can’t wait to make more fermented goodies!

    Reply
  6. Hallie
    07|04|2023

    Do you think you could sub all whole wheat for both the AP and rye flour?

    Reply
    1. Kaitlynn Fenley
      07|05|2023

      You can try it, but using all whole wheat flour may result in a dense bread

      Reply

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Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this e Fermentation is a gift from the microbes of this earth.

When we had a food business, I could never shake the feeling that fermentation is not meant to be sold to you from a fluorescently lit grocery shelf in an endless cycle of waste. Fermentation is meant to be cultivated in your home, with your hands, with intention and love in a sustainable, grateful practice of reciprocity and nourishment. 

This is the story of how we got here. 

After so many lessons learned, our small fermentation business is now value aligned, peaceful, fulfilling, and happy.  It often seems like the gut feelings (the microbes within us) guided us in the right direction. To teach. 

You can learn for free on our blog, or you can enroll in our online courses (we extended our new year sale!) Either way, with me as your teacher, you’ll learn to adopt a holistic perspective on the microbial ecosystems that influence our food, lives, and the planet.
My favorite topic I teach in our online course is My favorite topic I teach in our online course is called Fermentation Variables. The whole lesson is centered around the fact that there are six main variables that influence the outcome of fermentation.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Sugar
Salt
Oxygen
Acidity
Temperature
Time

Temperature and time depend on each other most closely. 

that means, for all of our foods and drinks that ferment at room temp, things slow way down in the winter cold. 

The fermentation timeline is simply longer when it’s colder (and faster when it’s hotter). The microbes, kind of like us, make things happen slowly in the cold winter. 

I think this is yet another sign from nature that we’re supposed to rest and be gentle and gracious with deadlines, work, and not rush things this time of year. 

Let it be slow, it’ll still be great, it just takes a little more patience and time. 

If you’re looking to start fermentation as an analog hobby in the new year, our courses are 40% off right now! You can use code NEWYEARS at checkout. (Yes, you learn online, but it’s delicious, long form content + the skills are life long). What you learn empowers you to get off the computer/phone and go ferment some delicious foods and drinks. 

Touching cabbage and dough is just as good as “touching grass” lol 

Let me know if you have questions about our courses or just fermentation in general in the comments!

#fermentation
Yes cooking kills the microbes, but idc. I mean, I Yes cooking kills the microbes, but idc. I mean, I care, but in a “thank you for your service microbes” kinda way. 🫡

Cider braised pork and sauerkraut is a perfect choice for New Year’s or any winter meal! I lovvveee pairing it with butternut squash polenta bc it’s full of vitamin C for cold and flu szn. 

Eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day is a tradition. And I really do think it brings good luck and prosperity.

Get the recipe on our blog, linked in my profile and in story highlights! 

I’m really looking forward to creating more recipes like this in the new year, to show you all the joys of incorporating ferments into meals and recipes 😌✨ stay tuned! 

#newyear #sauerkraut #fermentation
One Christmas I gifted everyone in my family the N One Christmas I gifted everyone in my family the New York style sourdough bagels and they were thrilled. (The bagels we’re actually way under proofed, but I still gifted them and everyone loved them lol)

You can get the full recipe on my blog! And these can be made with discard and instant yeast or with just active starter.

 All the details are in the 5-star rated recipe on my website. 

#bagels #sourdough
This cookie dough is long-fermented overnight in t This cookie dough is long-fermented overnight in the fridge for the softest, most flavorful, melt-in your mouth sourdough gingerbread cookies.

For Christmas 2025, I tried something new with these cookies. I created a gingerbread sourdough starter to use in this recipe! I made it by feeding some of my established starter a mix that includes molasses and gingerbread spices. I just added the instructions for the gingerbread starter in the notes of my cookie recipe.

Get the full recipe and directions on my website! https://cultured.guru 

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My gingerbread sourdough starter recipe 🎄✨ Like a My gingerbread sourdough starter recipe 🎄✨

Like and save for some fun Christmas sourdough baking! 

I made this up a few days ago to use in my soft sourdough gingerbread cookies. (cookie recipe is in my recipe index on my website!)

#sourdough #gingerbread
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