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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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Fridge pickles are made without pasteurization/sterilization (canning) so they will wild ferment without refrigeration, and not necessarily in a good way because there’s not enough salt. 

All vinegar is made via fermentation too, and vinegar fermentation involves acetic acid bacteria, but also a ton of LAB, mainly Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc (the same genera you’d find in fermented veg.)  I linked a reference paper in my fermented mushroom recipe blog, so you all can read about the LAB involved in vinegar fermentation. 

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Try googlin’ “beet and red cabbage sauerkraut” and you’ll see my recipe, I’m Cultured Guru.
Squash is the secret ingredient! My Roasted Butte Squash is the secret ingredient!

My Roasted Butternut Squash Hot Sauce recipe is free on my website! I didn’t cook this one, so yes it’s still probiotic.

When lactic acid bacteria ferment the starches in winter squash, they naturally convert them into emulsifying compounds called exopolysaccharides. So when we blend our hot sauce after fermentation, there’s no watery separation in the bottle. Roasting the squash with the garlic for the recipes also adds such good flavor! 

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I also share this recipe FOR FREE just ✨GOOGLE✨ “cultured guru SCOBY” and you’ll see my full recipe with the perfect sugar to tea ratios for growing, feeding and maintaining a kombucha SCOBY.

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And the knife stays in the box. GOOGLE “sourdoug And the knife stays in the box. 

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If you just search “sourdough king cake” on google you’ll see my recipe, it’s usually the first one. 

My main tips for making this:
✨use a very active starter or throw in some instant yeast with your starter
✨make sure the dough is actually proofed before shaping it. If it’s cold in your house it will take longer. 
✨please follow directions! You can cold ferment the dough in the fridge after it doubles in size and BEFORE filling and shaping.

🎵Song is Casanova by Rebirth Brass Band
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.
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