from Tiffany Ludwig
Breads can be intimidating to try. I know this; it took me years to feel confident to begin trying them out in my home kitchen. A couple of things helped me over that hurdle:
1. I got a stand mixer. Sure this isn't a necessity and people have made bread without one for a very long time. But for me a stand mixer has removed the fussiness of baking breads that had held me back.
2. I keep yeast on hand. When I'm at a grocery store and I happen to walk down the baking ingredients isle I just pick up another packet of yeast. It does keep for a long time, which is great, and the rest of the bread ingredients are almost always on hand. So this makes a spur of the moment bread baking experience possible.
This is a sweet loaf, really delicious for breakfast with a couple of runny eggs or a wonderful mid-afternoon snack. You can make it without the chocolate if you prefer or add nuts or other dried fruit. It's easily adaptable! Enjoy!
Cinnamon Chocolate and Raisin Bread Recipe
By Tiffany Ludwig
Ingredients
1 cup warm milk
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 packet instant yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
6 tablespoons melted, cooled butter
2 eggs
3 1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt (if your butter is salted use about 3/4 teaspoon)
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon cinnamon
3 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 cup chocolate chunks (or chips)
Preparation
Combine the warm milk, 4 tablespoons brown sugar and yeast stir and wait 10 minutes. This will bubble and smell yeasty (delicious!!)
In the bowl of a stand mixer whisk the yeast mixture, eggs and melted butter. Add flour and salt all at once and with the dough hook attachment combine in low speed. It will form a loose dough. To this add raisins and continue to knead on medium /low for 10 minutes. If the raisins drop out of the dough, don't worry, they will eventually move throughout the dough. If the dough nudges up over the hook just pause the machine and push it back down. If the dough is very dry you can add water, if it's too sticky add flour however add as little extra flour as possible.
Note: This recipe can be mixed and kneaded by hand. If you're not using a stand mixer, just use a large mixing bowl and knead by hand for 10 minutes.
Remove hook and let the dough rest in the bowl, covered in plastic wrap, for at least an hour. It will double in size. Now get the filling ingredients ready.
In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, cinnamon, melted butter to make a paste.
Prepare a 5x9" loaf pan with butter and optionally line bottom and sides with a sheet of parchment paper to act as a lift. To do this wonderful trick with parchment, begin with a ¼ sheet (8 ¾” x 12 ¼”), line the bottom of the pan with the parchment and allow it to come up each long side and fold over the top edge. To help it stay, you can clip the sides with all metal binder clips to the pan edge or just use butter to stick it on like I do!
Flour your counter top and stretch the dough to form a rectangle approximately 8"x18". Spread the filling over the entire dough and sprinkle on the chocolate chunks. From the short end, roll up the dough tightly all the way across.
Place the dough in a prepared loaf pan, seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 min.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bake 45-50 minutes, until the internal temp reads 190 degrees. Remove from oven, loosen the ends with a knife and lifting the parchment (if used) remove bread from pan. Allow to fully cool on a rack before slicing.
This with a dollop of high quality cultured butter is amazing. If you’d like a cultured butter recipe please just email info@zabars.com. It makes wonderful French Toast with this recipe!
