Sugar Bread Recipe: How to Make Simple Sugar Bread

Sugar bread is a sweet variety of quick bread flavored with brown sugar, cinnamon, and, occasionally, vanilla extract. Recipes for sugar bread may also include milk, unsalted butter, eggs, or olive oil as the primary source of fat and structure. Quick breads, like sugar bread, banana bread, and zucchini bread, rely on leavening agents, like baking powder and baking soda, rather than yeast for their rise.

Follow these simple steps to bake the best sugar bread:

1. 1. Combine the dry ingredients. Combine all of the dry ingredients and whisk until evenly mixed. This quick bread doesn’t use any yeast, so make sure to evenly distribute the baking powder so the bread rises evenly. Make gluten-free sugar bread by replacing all-purpose flour with gluten-free flour.
2. 2. Combine the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Even though it looks dry, sugar is considered a wet ingredient because it turns into a liquid when warmed or mixed with other liquids. Since this bread uses oil rather than butter, there is no need to cream the fat and eggs with an electric mixer. Simply whisk the ingredients together.
3. 3. Finish the batter. To ensure everything is evenly mixed, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in batches. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined to avoid a tough sugar bread. Unlike many breads, sugar bread requires no kneading—simply mix the ingredients together. Because the dough isn’t kneaded, there is no need for bread flour to develop strong gluten strands.
4. 4. Bake the sweet bread. For a golden, crunchy top, sprinkle the bread with rough turbinado sugar before baking in a greased and floured bread loaf pan. You can bake the bread in smaller, single-serving mini loaves with a shorter bake time.