Cinnamon-Raisin Bread

Cinnamon-Raisin Bread is a long time favourite for both Naz & me to eat with tea/coffee or for breakfast. It is no surprise that Anjalie loves it too. Before, tasting cinnamon-raisin bread, I never cared for sweet things with cinnamon. To me cinnamon was part of spices used in savory food like channa masala or biriyani. So tasting cinnamon raisin bread opened new possibilities of food with cinnamon. Did I say that it is favourite family snack as well? It is not too sweet, unlike cakes, and goes pretty well with spiced chai/coffee too. Nothing can compare to the soft crumb slightly spiced with cinnamon and biting into the plump raisins and then there is the cinnamon-sugar filling that just melts in your mouth, drool! I do use bread machine to do the kneading, but, then shape by hand and bake in conventional oven. However, you can mix and knead by hand as well. Here is the method (step by step) as much as possible.



You will need:
3/4 cup warm water
1 egg
1 tbl spoon softened butter/margarine
2 and 2/3 cups white bread flour
3 tbl spoon dry milk powder
2 tbl spoon sugar
1/3 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp dry yeast.

For the filling:
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp spoon cinnamon

Soak raisins for 15 mins in the 3/4 cup warm water to plump them up.

Remove the raisins and retain the warm water. Add an egg and lightly beat them together to mix.

Pour into the bread-pan of the bread machine.

Sprinkle the flour over the liquids to cover the liquids fully. Add the cinnamon over the flour. Place the butter, salt, sugar and milk powder in the four corners of the pan. Make a small indentation in the middle and add the yeast. Set the bread machine to basic dough setting. Add the raisins 10 minutes before the kneading cycle is finished.

Mix sugar and cinnamon for the filling in a bowl.

After the dough cycle, turn the dough over to a floured surface and punch out the dough.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle of the same length of the loaf pan and three times the width of the pan.

Spread the filling on the rectangle evenly.

Fold the bottom 1/3 up...

and the top 1/3 down to form a loaf.

Place seem-side down in a well greased loaf pan and cover with oiled cling film and leave to raise for 45 mins.

or until doubled. Mean while preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius (fan assisted)

Bake for 30-35 mins. For some reason I got a great oven spring this time. I am not complaining, though, since the bread was extra soft :)

Serve warm with butter and spiced chai or spiced coffee.