Cinnamon Swirl Bread

With all the canning going on, I haven’t been baking much. I’ll make a plain, easy, quick loaf of bread every few 4 or 5 days but other than that, I haven’t baked much. Today when I finished up the last project for Every Bit Counts, I wanted to bake something. Anything. I had been wanting cinnamon rolls but they’re so sweet with the icing. Sure, I could leave off the icing but that didn’t sound like what I was wanting. Then I thought about making Cinnamon Swirl Bread. I’m sure there are plenty of recipes for this but I took the easy route.

I used the Amish White Bread recipe because I know it and don’t have to look it up. I wanted the dough to be a bit “doughy” and not so “bready”. Does that make sense? To me, bread is fluffy and light but I wanted a the Cinnamon Swirl to be more chewy and dense and not rise up so much.

I used 1 cup of water, 2 cups of flour (though I did add maybe a tablespoon more), 1 tsp. yeast, a little less than one teaspoon salt, 1 heaping tablespoon of sugar and just a little grapeseed oil (any oil or butter would work). It’s a wet dough and I floured my hands when getting it out of the mixing bowl and then re-floured my hands while shaping it into a ball.

I let it rise in a greased bowl for an hour, then rolled it out into a long-ish, narrow rectangle. I had about a tablespoon of soft butter, spread it very thinly over the dough, then sprinkled with brown sugar, white sugar and cinnamon. Start with a long side and roll it up as tightly as you can. Pinch to seal the edges. Using a sharp knife (flour if it sticks), starting about 2″ from the top and slice all the way down the roll so the two pieces are only connected at the top. Cross the two pieces over each other – like you’re braiding it but with only two pieces. Scrunch it up to make it shorter as you’re braiding.

Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Let rise for 20 – 30 minutes. You don’t want it to rise as high as bread dough would. Bake for about 30 minutes. Some of the filling will melt out. I used a spoon to scoop the melted filling and spread it over the top of the warm bread.

Let it cool for 15 minutes or more before slicing.