Sweet Bread (Braided Bread) (2024)

How to make a beautiful loaf of Braided Sweet Bread! This bread is soft & fluffy with just the right touch of sweetness. If you’re nervous about baking with yeast I walk you through all of the steps in detail and include a step-by-step video!

Braided Bread Perfection

There is nothing better than freshly baked homemade bread.

Unless, of course, if you ever-so-slightly sweeten that bread, enrich it with eggs (and extra yolks) and butter, beautifully braid it, and top it off with a crystallized sugar coating.

What You Need

The dough that I use for today’s recipe is essentially the same as the one I use for my sticky buns. There’s a reason for that, and the reason is that this is one of the best, most tender, softest bread doughs I’ve ever made. It’s delicious, perfectly chewy and enriched with a few key ingredients.

Here’s what you need to make it:

• Milk & Water. Using milk enriches the bread, makes it more tender and makes it slightly sweeter, while the water helps encourage a fluffier crumb.
• Yeast. This can make or break your sweet bread. Make sure it isn’t expired and be sure your milk and water are heated to the proper temperature to activate it correctly. If your yeast doesn’t foam after 10 minutes, something went wrong and you must start over.
• Flour. You can use bread flour or all-purpose, see my FAQ section for more details on this.
• Salt. Most importantly this adds flavor to the bread.
• Melted butter. This is a key ingredient to enriching the bread dough.
• Eggs. We use a whole egg and an extra egg yolk. This extra yolk also helps create a perfectly enriched dough. Save the egg white! We’ll use it to brush the top of our bread.
• Sugar. I use granulated sugar to sweeten the bread and then coarse turbinado to sprinkle over the top of the bread for a crisp, sweet exterior. If you don’t have turbinado sugar, just use additional regular granulated sugar for topping.

Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post.

How to Braid Bread

My sister taught me to braid this bread (she spent a few years at a Subway during college) and insisted I do a 4-piece braid (rather than a classic 3-piece) because it’s “prettier”. I agree with her. While it might seem complex, it’s really quite simple. Here’s how it’s done:

1. After your dough has risen, gently deflate it and divide into four pieces.
2. Roll each piece into a 15″ rope. If the dough is stick you can very lightly flour your hands, but don’t over-do it. Too much flour makes it difficult to work with the ropes. Arrange the ropes in a row.
3. Take your rope that’s furthest to the right and cross that over the rope immediately to its left.
4. Now weave that same rope beneath the next rope (second from the left).
5. Now with that same strand, cross over the rope all the way to the left.
6. Repeat! Start again with the rope all the way to the right and cross that over the rope directly to its left…
7. and then under the next rope…
8. and then over the left-most rope.
9. Repeat until you reach the end then smoosh those ends together really well and tuck them neatly underneath the bread. You have half of your bread braided at this point, now work from the center and repeat the steps above until you have braided the other half of the bread and tucked the ends.

You’ll notice that we start with the center of the bread. This is how I was taught and not only does this make it easier, it also helps make for a more symmetrical bread than if we just started from one end.

Tip: Braid your bread directly on the baking sheet! This is easier than braiding it on your counter and then trying to move it.

Frequently Asked Questions

More Recipes You Might Like

• Dinner Rolls
• Homemade Bread
• Cinnamon Rolls
• How to make Bagels

Enjoy!

Let’s bake together! Make sure to check outthe how-to VIDEO in the recipe card!