Making Cinnamon Swirl Bread
How About Your Breakfast Toast With A Swirl
Most times I've had cinnamon toast the bread has little cinnamon taste and making sticky cinnamon buns is too sweet to make into toast. Learning new techniques and recipes is a constant endeavor as I am a picky eater but when I come across a new recipe I like to tweak it to make it my own. This recipe is awesome with plain butter, as toast but I have better uses for it.
Try this recipe as is then give it a twist to make it your own.
Cook Time
Prep Time: 30 min plus 2 hours riasing time
Serves: Makes 2 loaves of cinnamon swirl bread
Ingredients
- 1 2/3 cups of luke warm water
- 1 tsp agava syrup
- 1 Tbsp yeast
- 4 cups flour
- 3/4 cups whole milk powder
- 1/2 cup sugar
- zest from 1/2 a lemon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter cubed and softened
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 2 - 3 Tbsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Mix the warm water, the agave syrup and the yeast together and set aside to bloom
- Mix the flour milk powder salt and lemon zest In a mixer bowl. Blend the dry ingredients. Slowly add water and mix until blended. If your mixer has a dough hook, let you machine knead the dough for 10 minutes. If not you'll have to knead the dough by hand. It is a soft and sticky dough so flour your hands good. Let the dough rest covered with plastic film for 20 minutes.
- Lightly flour the cubed butter and add one cube at a time kneading it into the dough. This will tenderize the dough and add a rich flavor to it as well. Everything taste better with butter. Keep kneading the dough until it comes back together - about 5 minutes.
- Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl covered with plastic film. Place the covered bowl in a warm place for 45 minutes. Carefully punch the dough down and fold it over itself several times. recover it and lest rise again in the warm place until doubled in size. About another 45 minutes.
- Divide the dough ball in half. Roll each out in a rough rectangle and fold lengthwise in thirds. Then roll up the dough into a ball. This helps to create more structure in the dough without making it tough. Now roll it out to a large flat rectangle as thins as you can.
- Mix the powdered icing sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and the lemon juice together. Lightly wet the dough with a few sprinkles of water. Spread half the sugar cinnamon mixture over the dough leaving a 3/4 inch edge all the way around.
- Next roll up the dough along the short edge. Pinch the seams closed. and set aside to rest again for 10 minutes.
- With a sharp knife cut the dough logs down the center lengthwise. Join the ends together and roughly twist the two halves together in a twisted rope. form the dough and place it in a greased loaf pan or french bread pan.
- Set aside covered with plastic film to raise again until it is almost doubled in size. I set my dough and pans to rise in the oven set on warm (100 F). Take them out of the oven when they are close to finished and turn the oven on to 350 F.
- When the oven is up to temp brush the top of the loaves gently with a well beaten egg. This will give the crust a golden brown color. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 and then tent the loaves with tin foil and bake for another 20 minutes until done.
- Cool on a rake before cutting into the bread. The wait is worth the effort.
Alternatives:
You could add raisins or walnuts or both to the dough before you roll it out and add the filling.
You could cut out the lemon zest from the dough and lemon juice from the filling and add a tsp of vanilla to the filling instead.
Cinnamon Swirl Bread Step by Step
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The best way I have found to eat my new cinnamon swirl bread is to make it into french toast. Slice it thick and soak in a well mixed egg mixture with a bit of vanilla and nutmeg. Fry in lots of butter and enjoy with your favorite syrup.
I found that using water to dampen the dough makes the mixture stick better. Most cinnamon bun and rolled dough recipes I have seen use butter as a base for the mixture. This just makes large gaps in the bread because the butter prevents the dough from merging and lets the sugar mixture leak out. That may be fine for cinnamon buns but we want swirl bread. Use water. I dampen my fingers and wet the dough that way, otherwise you could use a spritzer bottle. Spray lightly.
