Bring on the Sunshine with this Sourdough Sunshine Loaf

Let the sunshine in with this centerpiece-worthy Sourdough Sunshine Loaf, shaped like the sun and made with a blend of rye and white flours.

This is the bread of the month for the Bread Baking Babes, and I’m pleased to announce that I’m the host kitchen for August.

I chose this Sunshine Loaf because we all need a little ray of light in our lives, and this bread is a fun way to bring some joy to the dinner table.

I thought about making a flatbread that could be baked on a griddle, instead of having to use an oven during the dog days of August (depending on where you live), but I just couldn’t resist this loaf.

This bread is adapted from the book BREAD: the breads of the world and how to bake them at home by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter.  This is one of the first bread books I ever got.  It’s a beautiful book, and I still enjoy flipping through the pages for inspiration.

The description for this bread reads, “Scandinavia, Land of the Midnight Sun, has numerous breads based on rye.  This splendid table centerpiece is made with a blend of rye and white flours, the latter helping to lighten the bread.”

The first time I made this bread, it didn’t turn out quite like the photo in the book, but the flavor was wonderful!  The loaf in the photo below was made using the full recipe, and I had to swirl the rays more to get everything to fit on my baking sheet.

I decided to make it again, with a few adjustments.  I converted it to sourdough and cut the formula in half.

The smaller loaf is much easier to handle because all of the dough pieces can be formed to fit on a standard-size baking sheet.  Not to mention, it’s really cute!  You can serve it on a large plate (the one in the photo below is an 11-inch plate).

I hope you’ll like this loaf as much as I did.  A fun way to enjoy it is to pull off rays of the sun to eat like you would a dinner roll.   It’s chewy on the outside and flavorful on the inside.

Baker’s Notes on Sourdough Sunshine Loaf:

• For the first loaf, I used 4 cups of rye, and it was real sticky.  I reduced the amount of rye for the 2^nd loaf.
• This is a really big loaf (unless you make 1/2 of the recipe).  I had a hard time figuring out how to fit it on the baking sheet which is why I rolled the rays tighter than the picture. Unless you have a larger baking sheet, I think 2 smaller loaves will be easier to shape.
• Shape it on a greased baking sheet. I tried shaping the larger loaf on parchment paper, but the dough stuck to it, and the rectangular shape of the parchment didn’t lend itself to the shape of the loaf.  It wasn’t wide enough for the rays to fit on.  I used a greased baking sheet instead and it worked much better.  For the smaller loaf, the parchment worked fine.
• Work fast when shaping the loaf. I shaped the pieces straight from the refrigerator and had to work fast so the pieces didn’t overproof before I got the loaf put together.  I probably shaped and reshaped it 3 times before I got it right and onto the baking sheet.
• *Shaping the middle spiral. The directions said to shape the middle section first, but I ended up having to reshape it when I transferred it to the baking sheet because it had been proofing the whole time I was shaping the other pieces.  This piece goes on last so I would wait to shape this piece until after shaping the other pieces.
• I didn’t like the look of the milk-brushed loaf. I brushed the loaf with milk and sprinkled it with caraway seeds before baking, as the recipe suggested, but it looked pale once I removed it from the oven. So to give it some color, I brushed the warm loaf with melted butter. It looked much better and didn’t affect the flavor.