CInnamon Swirl Bread

I made this bread yesterday-- Country Cinnamon Bread

This will be long, so hold on tight :)

These are the ingredients I needed :

You can check the recipe link for specifics :)

Anyway, I got started by melting the margerine (you can use butter) into the milk (basically warming the milk with the butter until the butter is melted)

Then Hubby came in to be sure all gas appliances were off because they were turning off the gas...ummm-ok.

WAIT! Microwave!

So, I heated the milk a bit in the microwave and that melted the butter-let it cool...You do not want your liquids too hot when adding them to the yeast, or it will kill your yeast.

Meanwhile, I added the yeast, warm water and sugar to my big pink bowel (decided not to use the snowman bowl since it has a thin bottom :)

I like to let my yeast, water and sugar sit a bit to proof, as I said in a previous post. Then, I added the cooled milk and butter mixture, as well as the cinnamon (I also added in a touch of vanilla not listed in the recipe, but I thought it would be nice :)

Next, start adding your flour and stir. I like using a flat spoon for this. Reason being, it allows you to get the doughy goop off the spoon when you are ready to start kneading :)

When it starts to look like this below, you will be ready to start with hand kneading:

Add about 1/2 cup or so at a time. Usually, I get a handfull, sprinkle it over the hand I plan to knead with and start folding the dough over and over again, turning my bowl as I go along. I knead in my bowl because, to me, it creates a lot less mess than doing it on the counter, table or whatever...

Above, you can see how the heel of my hand is starting to get sticky with dough-this is where I start to add more flour. You hav eto careful to not add too much and your hands will naturally become sticky because of accumulated dough, so just sprinkling the flour into my hand allows me to not add too much flour into my dough. Too much flour can make your dough tough. I also, as I get further into the kneading, do switch hands--two reasons-1) because the one arm/hand gets tired-lol and 2) because it gives me a better feel for how sticky the dough is, or if it is close to being done with the kneading process.

This is about the point where I was called away for the first time. I do not remember why. I came back a couple minutes later and kneaded more. Then, an injured child came in-laughing at how she wiped out on her bike. Scrape on the knee, everything fine. Then, she discovered a worse injury which I will not go into-let's just say it was bad and would make you wince terribly...I hate bikes I think...

So, my dough at this point was not kneaded as much as I think it should have been, but by the time I had dealt with this serious injury, it was already rising....

Put into clean and greased bowl, turning your dough over to make sure it is nicely oiled/greased. You can spray with cooking spray if you wish, but honestly, I have not had success with this-maybe I do not use enough, not sure, so I just use canola oil to cover the bowl and my dough :) Then, cover with a clean towel and place in a warm spot.

About an hour later, your dough will be double in size.

Punch down-no, don't really punch it I guess--I use my hand to sort of fold it over onto itself a couple times. Some recipes call for you to place on a floured surface after the punch down and knead a bit more. This one did, so that is what I did :)

Then, I rolled it into a rectangle :

Then, I slathered the butter and sprinkled the sugar and cinnamon on top. Rolled it up into a log, trying to keep it tight and placed it into a greased pan (I do use cooking spray for this).

Cover again with the towel, keep in warm spot and let rise about 30 mins. I guess I let mine rise a good 40 mins.

Then, bake at about 375 degrees. I forgot to set my timer, and remembered just at the right time-before it burned-lol! So, check the directions in the recipe for time amounts :)

Remove from pan and let cool before slicing :

Now, see the middle of my bread is not 'with' the rest of the bread. I think my problem is I do not roll these sort of breads tight enough...I have the same problem with my cinnamon rolls. Not sure what I do, I feel like I am rolling tightly-oh well...the bread is gone this morning :) That is all that matters ;)

On another site, a bread pro mentions kneading for awhile, and checking your dough's elasticity by taking a golf ball size amount of dough and sort of flattening/stretching it out. It should not tear easily. I planned to do that with this dough, but got sidetracked. I did do that with my bread the day before, but since I had no final product to bake, I cannot tell you how well that worked. Usually, I will push two fingers slightly into the dough as I am kneading and watch if the indentations (I do not puncture the dough with my fingers) springs back right away. This works well for me it seems.

I think that is all for now :) Hopefully this is not too confusing for those who were interested in a tutorial. Really, and many people told me this, it is getting in there and doing-again and again. Eventually, you will get the hang of it. Start off with an easy bread recipe-like from Chickens in the Road's blog-see on the right under Fun and Creativity, then look in her recipe section for Grandmother Bread-she has a great tutorial!