Monday, September 2, 2013

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Tyrone has been out of town a lot lately and our home feels so lonely without him. Now, there are countless things that I should be doing. With him being gone you would think I'd get a lot accomplished but that hasn't seemed to be the case. Last week he was out of town 5 days for work and the whole week I just lounged around the house relaxed and didn't do a whole lot. Tyrone left out of town again a few days ago to go on a trip with some of his college buddies and the first night he was gone I was on Facebook and his friend's wife, Ellen, said that with her husband gone she had already cleaned the whole house! She was my inspiration. I decided it was time to be productive. I first cleaned the house and organized quite a few things for the baby. Yesterday I worked half a day and ran errands. Then today I baked homemade cinnamon raisin bread. I feel like that's much better than last time he went out of town. Plus, I worked on Saturday and I'm working on the holiday tomorrow so that's got to count for something right?

Now, as I mentioned on my birthday post, Tyrone got me a Bosch mixer for my birthday a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it! Baking bread is much simpler now and it isn't nearly as big of a task as it used to be. I came across a recipe that makes three loaves of cinnamon raisin bread which is perfect because for one, I only have 3 loaf pans and secondly, I have two friends I wanted to take loafs to and then that leaves me with a loaf for Tyrone and I. Using this recipe in the Bosch is awesome because its bigger than a kitchen aid mixer and it can handle a lot of dough. With the kitchen aid mixer, once you add most of the flour you might have to knead it on the table to make it smooth at the end because the mixing bowl will be too full.


Here is the recipe from Super Glue Mom

Ingredients:
  • 1½ cups milk
  • 1 cup warm water (between 110-115 degrees)
  • 5 teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ cup white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 9 cups all-purpose flour + more for kneading
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted (approx.)
  • 3 9×5 inch loaf pans
    Instructions:
  • Warm milk (in the microwave or stovetop) to a luke-warm temperature (120-125 degrees).
  • Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside until yeast is frothy, about 10 minutes or so.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl) add in eggs, sugar, butter salt and raisins. Next, add milk and yeast mixture as well as the water.
  • Add the flour gradually to make a dough. (Mine only took just over 8 cups. I would start with 8 and slowly add up to 9 as needed. In the mixer I watch for when the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl leaving the sides of the bowl clean.)
  • On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for a few minutes until smooth. I usually finish my dough on the counter since my stand mixer is not a huge one and it tends to overfill. (Because I had the Bosch mixer I was able to use the dough hook and just knead it with the hook in the bowl for a few minutes until the dough was smooth.)
  • Place dough in a large, buttered, mixing bowl and turn to grease the surface of the dough.
  • Cover with a warm, damp cloth and let rise. I usually turn my oven on for a couple of minutes while I am mixing the ingredients, turn oven off and let my dough rise in there. It’s warm enough but not hot that it will cook it. (It has been so hot here lately that my dough doubled in size without using the oven in only 40 minutes.)
  • Allow to rise until doubled, usually about 1½ hours.


  • Roll out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle ½ inch thick.

  • Moisten the dough with 2 tablespoons milk and rub all over the dough with your hands.

  • Mix together 1 cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons cinnamon and sprinkle mixture evenly on top of the moistened dough.
  • Roll up tightly (the long way). The roll should be about 3 inches in diameter.

  • Cut into thirds, and tuck under ends and pinch bottom together. (I use thread to cut the loaves into three even pieces. This is the same technique I use when cutting cinnamon rolls. (I also cut off the very ends of the long rolls to make the ends look better and fit into the pan easier.)
  • Place loaves into 3 well greased 9 x 5 inch pans and lightly grease tops of loaves.

  • Let rise in warm place, uncovered, again for about an hour.


  • Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until loaves are lightly browned and sound hollow when tapped.
  • Remove from oven and let cool on rack. Take melted butter and spread over tops of loaves (totally optional).
  • After about 20 minutes, lay loaves on their sides and remove from pans. Allow loaves to cool before slicing.

  • I bake all 3 loaves at once, cool and slice. I freeze 2 of them for later use.

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