Bread/Yeast | Recipes | Snacks
Sweet Bread Dough
I use this delightful Sweet Bread Dough to make one of my favorite childhood treats: Moravian Kolache. And that’s not all. This versatile dough is perfect for making Fruit bread tarts, Poppy Seed Roll, Cinnamon Rolls, Walnut Crescents, and Peach Slab Bread. Without a doubt, this is the only sweet bread dough recipe you’ll ever need.
Updated recipe from 2010.
SWEET BREAD DOUGH RECIPE
This Sweet Bread Dough is versatile and easy to work with. It shapes nicely and bakes into perfection. Rolls stay soft and delicious. Baked sweet bread roll, filled buns can be also frozen. They keep well in the freezer for up to 2 months.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE SWEET BREAD
- Ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, unsalted melted butter, egg yolks, active dry yeast and vanilla extract.
- My Favorite Baking Tools – all the tools can be found in my shop, or otherwise stated.
- Mixer with a hook attachment or prepare dough by hand
- Spatula
- Mixing Bowls
- Whisk
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PREPARE YEAST SPONGE
- Into a medium bowl pour warm milk (not hot, around 100F-110F / 38C).
- Add a pinch of sugar or honey, active dry yeast and a tablespoon of flour.
- Whisk well and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
- Wait until the mixture is foamy on the surface.
KNEAD YEAST DOUGH
- Into a bowl of your stand mixer add flour, sugar, and salt. Whisk well.
- Add all the wet ingredients and stir with a spoon until well combined.
- Use a hook attachment to knead the dough.
- I usually knead it for about 5 to 10 minutes until it’s smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough should be soft.
- Dump the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for a minute. Shape the dough into a ball.
- This yeasted dough doesn’t require 1st proof.
- You can start shaping buns and roll them right away. If there is a lot of resistance, cover the dough and let it relax for 10 minutes.
- Once you have buns filled and shaped, place them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment.
- Cover with a damp paper towel and let rise in a draft free spot for 50-60 minutes.
- Brush with an egg wash, sprinkles, streusel topping, or sugar.
- Bake at 350F, until buns are golden.
MORE BREAD RECIPES
Quick Sweet Bread Dough
Bake at 350F, 15-20 minutes, until golden brown around the edges
Servings 20 people
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour (500 grams) (500grams)
- 5 tsp dry yeast
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- 1 cup warm milk (240-250ml)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled (1 stick is 113 grams)
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Melt butter (1 stick, 113 grams) and let it cool to room temperature. Into the melted butter, whisk two egg yolks and vanilla extract (1 teaspoon), and set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together warm milk (1 cup, 250 ml), sugar (1/4 teaspoon), dry active yeast (5 teaspoons), and flour (1 tablespoon). Let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy.
- Add flour (4cups 500-560grams), granulated sugar (1/2 cup, 100 grams), and a pinch of salt into your stand mixer bowl. Whisk well.
- Into the flour mixture, pour all the yeast mixture and butter-egg mixture. With a wooden spoon, stir until combined. If the dough appears too dry, add 1 tablespoon of warm water or milk. If the dough appears too wet, add 1 tablespoon flour.
- Knead dough with a hook attachment until dough is smooth, about 5 to 10 minutes.
- Invert the dough onto a lightly floured surface and continue kneading for 1 minute until it comes into a ball.
- Fill and shape buns, rolls, small bread tarts. Cover with a damp paper towel and let rise for 50 minutes to an hour.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 350F, until golden.
Notes
- Can I make the dough ahead of time? Yes, you can. Use 3 teaspoons of dry yeast if you plan on letting the dough rise overnight in the fridge or at room temperature for 1 hour before shaping the buns. Place it into a lightly greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and place it into the fridge overnight. Take it out of the fridge the following day, and shape the buns. Let them rise in a warm, draft-free place and bake. Alternatively, you can shape the buns, cover them, and place them in the fridge overnight. Next day, take them out, remove the cover, let them come to room temperature, let them rise, and bake them off.
- Can I freeze baked rolls? Yes, you can freeze rolls for up to 2 months.
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Recipe calls to mix In 3 tsp yeast but top ingredients say 5 tsp. Why the difference
Hi Cindy,
thank you for catching the typo. Yes, for a quick yeast dough it’s 5tsp.
And if you have time to let it rise overnight in the fridge or for 1 hour or so before shaping you can use 3tsp.
Have a great day. Hani
I used this dough for Kolache, and it was amazing! So delicious!
For the longest time, I’ve been looking for a sweet bread dough recipe that made something not only sweet and buttery, but also soft and pulled apart like cotton. This recipe is it! Thank you for sharing.
Hi Gemma,
I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it! I’m craving kolache, maybe over the weekend I’ll make them again.
Have a great week!
Thanks for the great recipes. Every confection looks so flavorable, I want to try them all. I baked the blueberry babka and the first loaf dropped after cooling. The second loaf is hard. Please offer suggestions to improve the recipe. I was planning to make blueberry French toast. I plan on making another attempt at baking babka. Thanks, I. Archer
Hello I. Archer,
Bread when cooling can drop for several reasons
1. Lack of gluten development, this can be caused by know enough kneading and even by the flour itself. I had this issue with flour recently, and had to switch to a different brand that gives me much better results. Or you can use a combination of all purpose and bread flour.
2. When bread cools too rapidly when you take it out of the oven it can also collapse. You can loosely cover bread with a kitchen towel and avoid placing it into cold room/area or in a cold draft. It will cause the air pockets to shrink too quickly hence bread that collapsed.
3.Too much rise. This can happen when bread has over-risen. Bread will expand too much in the oven but it has weak structure due to those extra large bubbles. Later it can collapse.
Dense or heavy bread can also be a result of not kneading the dough enough, mixing salt and yeast together
Hi, what is peach bread? Do you have a recipe for it?
I’ll be posting it soon.:-)
Please make a video on how to make kolaches. I can make yeast dough, but have trouble shaping the kolaches. Thanks.
I’m on it. 🙂
Ooops!!
I meant the Apricot Bread Tartlets…:O))
Thanks for the recipe Haniela…yeast always scares me so I appreciate the link to explain how yeast works and the different types available.
I would love to be able to make these tarts.