Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Perfect as a breakfast bread, you’re gonna love this. This is also one of those recipes that you can really play around with but we’re gonna start with cinnamon for now ;)

We’re going to start with my so very versatile bread recipe which you can find in length here. But here’s the Short and Gritty:

The Dough
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp Salt
2 1/2 tsp Yeast
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
2 tbsp Oil
1 cup Warm water
Directions:
1. Mix the first two ingredients.
2a. If you're using active dry yeast include the next two ingredients.
2b. If you're using traditional yeast, mix the last four ingredients together and let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Add wet to dry, mix in the bowl until it comes together into a ball.
4. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes adding small amounts of flour when it becomes too sticky.

Ingredients
all link on ingredients are to the ingredient spotlight posts of this blog

1 batch of dough
2 tbsp sugar (white, brown or a mixture)
1-2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, separated

Tools

Dry measures
Wet measures
A spoon
A large bowl
Something with a flat edge for levelling flour

Optional: bench scraper

Directions

When we get to the point where you're ready to let the dough rise let it rise in a lightly oiled bowl for about 30 minutes.

While it is rising, make your mixture of cinnamon and sugar (white or brown or both.)


Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and grab your rolling pin. You want to make this a rectangle about an inch thick and the short edge should be about the length of your loaf pan.

Melt about a tbsp of butter (you can always melt more if you need it) and brush it onto your rolled out dough.

Sprinkle your cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the butter.



Roll up your loaf. Pinch the edge to seal it to the rest of the loaf and place the loaf open edge down to avoid it popping open while rising and baking. If you want you can pinch the ends closed as well but this isn't necessary.

Allow to rise again for about 40 minutes or until doubled in size. As with the regular bread recipe you can brush butter (or oil or egg wash) on the top for a nice brown crust. Pop in the oven at 360 for 22 minutes.

Cool on a cooling rack. Slice and serve.





Serving

When I made this recently we made french toast with it but you could use it for pb&j sandwiches, toast with butter (and cinnamon sugar if you really want) or glaze it and treat it like a sliceable cinnamon roll!

If you want to really step out pf your comfort zone I think this bread would even work well with something more savoury like a  chicken salad sandwich because cinnamon is such a versatile spice and this bread really isn't that sweet.