If you’ve ever been to The Cheesecake Factory, you know that one of the best parts of the meal comes before you even order — that warm, slightly sweet brown bread they bring to the table. Today, I’m sharing my homemade version of that iconic bread, but with a twist: I’ve baked it into a beautiful sourdough loaf. It’s got the same rich, honey-kissed flavor you love, but with the depth, chew, and tanginess of a slow-fermented sourdough. Perfect for slicing, slathering with butter, or building the ultimate sandwich — this recipe brings together the best of both worlds in one irresistible loaf.
Ingredients
Sourdough Starter
- 20 g sourdough starter
- 70 g water
- 70 g bread flour
Dough
- 270 g bread flour (90%)
- 30g whole wheat flour 10%
- 3 g cocoa powder (1%)
- 180 g water (60%) +20g extra if needed
- 150g sourdough starter (50%)
- 78g honey (26%)
- 9 g sugar (3%)
- 6 g baking salt (2%)
- 30 g soft butter (10%)
- 1/2 cup old fashioned oats for coating
Directions
Day 1
Starter
- 10 pm dissolve starter in the water, whisk together, add flour, mix well, cover and let it sit at room temp 74-78F until it increases in volume in 2 or more times.
- Learn how to make sourdough starter from scratch here).
Day 2
Dough
- In a mixer bowl add all flour, cocoa powder, water, sourdough starter, honey and sugar and mix dough on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 3-4 minutes until well incorporated.
- Add salt and mix it for a couple more minutes. The dough should form a ball.
- Add soft butter, increase the speed of mixer, mix for 10 more minutes until the dough is well incorporated and comes up together.
- Cover and let it proof for 5-6 hours at 76-80F/ 24-26C.
- During that time perform 3 stretches and folds.
- The dough should become puffy, almost doubled in size.
Shaping sourdough
- 2 pm Dust the work surface with flour and flip the container with the dough onto it.
- Starting with the side closest to you, pull the right two corners of the dough to the left, then fold them up into the center of the dough. Repeat this action with the other side.
- Finally, roll the dough and shape it into a smooth, taut roll.
- Spray roll generously with water and roll it in the mixture of regular oats.
- Transfer the roll, seam side up, into a prepared proofing basket (loaf pan with kitchen towel).
- Cover it with plastic and return the dough to the 78F/26C environment for 15 minutes.
- Then transfer the dough to rise for 14-24 hours in refrigerator at 40F/4C.
Baking
Next morning
- Preheat your oven to 500°F and place a baking steal inside the oven for preheating
- Remove the dough from the fridge.
- Flip it over onto a piece of parchment paper and score it with a sharp knife or a scoring lame.
- Transfer the dough onto the hot baking steal and cover with the Baking Shell to create steam for a beautiful crumb.
- Bake at 500°F for 15 minutes with the Baking Shell on.
- Remove the Baking Shell and lower the temperature to 450°F.
- Bake for 20 more minutes until golden brown.
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