Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, And Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

Times, they are a’changing. But, for the sake of making an important point,  I’ll cut to the chase: RSS Friends, please take a second and update your feed reader to follow this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TestKitchenTuesday.

I recently got with the picture and learned what Feedburner is and why it is important: Mainly, that I can change hosts over time and not lose you. I keep waffling back and forth on potentially changing hosts, and, I don’t want to lose you if I do! We have become so close, yet we’re so far away. And, if you stopped by on Friday evening and noticed something different…or perhaps nothing at all…I apologize. I was doing a little behind-the-scenes tweaking and experienced a little downtime. I should have better things to do on a Friday night!

An-y-way.

Today, I have a tasty recipe for you. I just adore cinnamon raisin bread, but, store bought can be kind of dry in my opinion. And, the slices are always so small. Why are the slices so small? If anyone knows, I would love to be enlightened.

Here is a cinnamon raisin bread that is based on 2Chili’s favorite bread. When I made it the first time, 2Chili proclaimed, “This is GOOD bread,” without being asked. That’s how I know something is truly good – if I get positive feedback without prompting. Coming from someone whose nickname is “2ChiliBreadBowl,” I take feedback on bread very seriously. The man is a bread connoisseur.

The first go round, I made it in a bread pan so it had more of a traditional loaf shape. This time, I made it as more of a French bread shape because it got a little too big for the loaf pan. Either method works fine, and they both taste great!

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

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Time Required:

• 5 minutes to prepare ingredients
• 90 minutes (passive) for bread maker to make dough
• 5 minutes to roll dough
• 23 minutes to cook

Skill Level (out of 5):

2Chili’s Taster Rating (out of 5):

Ingredients:

For the bread:

• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 4 cups bread flour (or, 20 ounces if you weigh the flour)
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast

For the swirl

• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup raisins
• More cinnamon, to taste

Method:

• Add all the ingredients for the bread to your bread maker in the order suggested by the manufacturer, set the machine to the “dough” setting, and activate the machine
• I have found if you add the olive oil before the honey, you can help the honey just fall out of the tablespoon, instead of sticking
• Preheat the oven to 350 F when the dough is done and put it on a lightly floured surface.
• While the oven is preheating, roll the dough out flat and spread the brown sugar, raisins, and cinnamon (if you choose) evenly over the dough.
• Roll the tough tightly into a roll – much like you are rolling a cinnamon roll. It should be very tightly rolled!
• You can either transfer into a bread pan and allow to rise while the oven preheats or bake in more of a French loaf as it is after being rolled.
• Bake for 23 minutes, or until the top is golden brown

Nutrition:
Based on 16 servings per loaf, each slice has: