Cinnamon Raisin Loaf: Rose's Bread Bible Bakers

Cinnamon Raisin Loaf 'The Bread Bible' 

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It's almost Christmas, or so said a facebook count down post this week and this cinnamon raisin loaf from Rose Levy Beranbaum would be just the thing for Christmas or an anytime brunch.   

It started with making a sponge... flour, water, honey and yeast were whisked until a thick airy batter was achieved. 

The "sponge" is a yeast starter. I did mine in the mixer. 

Next flour, dry milk powder and yeast were whisked together and sprinkled over the sponge. 

Off it goes now to ferment, for 1 to 4 hours. 

Bubbles broke through the flour blanket at the end of the fermenting stage.

Onto the mixer now where softened butter is added to the fermented flour mixture and beaten until a rough dough forms. 

A short rest follows, for that dough that is, but you do have time to get a cup of tea now. 

Back to the mixer, salt is added and the dough beaten to it forms a smooth and shiny ball. 

Yup, another short rest here. 

And back to the mixer to add the raisins. I used a mixture of sultanas and currants. 

After the raisins are added your dough goes off for a couple of hours to do the rising thing. Time for much tea or maybe a yoga class now. 

Back from yoga and it's time turn out the dough, form a rectangle, business letter fold the dough whilst maintaining as much air a possible.  

Covered, the dough goes into the fridge for now for an hour to firm up. I left mine for 24 hours at this stage to develop flavour. 

Make your cinnamon sugar mixture.

The dough is rolled out to the specified size in the book, Rose's recipe makes two loaves I made many mini loaves because we know I just like "mini food". 

Beaten egg is brushed onto the rolled dough, cinnamon sugar is sprinkled on leaving a border unsugared. 

Roll up you dough, just like we did for the sticky caramel buns last month. Place your rolled dough into greased tins to rise for one to two hours. 

Time to bake!

When the loaves are removed from oven and still in tins, melted butter is brushed on. 

Sssshhhh! You aren't supposed to cut your hot bread but here is the a hot mini loaf with the cut crust off, wanted to see if the spiral worked. 

Fantastic texture in this bread! Toasts beautifully, however it does burn quickly so keep an eye on it.

I served mine toasted with fresh cheese, berries and maple syrup but it was equally delicious toasted with butter. I liked it fresh and unadorned too reminded me of panettone, a nice one not the slightly dodgy ones the supermarket sells at Christmas. 

Would I change anything? No, perfect how it was.  

Want another flavour? Rose has a savoury version in the book and suggests you can leave out the dried fruit if preferred.  A friend suggested candied peel could be added, yes if you like peel go for it. I think chopped dried dates, orange zest and swapping out the cinnamon for cardamom would result in lovely loaf. A versatile enriched base dough suits many flavour combinations.  

Happy Baking :)  

Today has been one of the 'Rose's Bread Bible Bakers' bakes where a group of fabulous bakers get together and bake from the pages of 'The Bread Bible'.

The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is available from Amazon and all discerning book stores. 

You might also be interested in  A Trip to the Moon (French: Voyage dans la Lune) cupcake

Sticky Caramel Buns: Rose's Bread Bible Bakers

Sticky Caramel Buns 'The Bread Bible' 

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Oooo these buns today remind me of a cross between a Chelsea bun and golden syrup dumplings.

A soft and buttery enriched dough is filled and rolled, a "golden syrup dumpling sauce" with brown sugar, butter, golden syrup and touch of cream is added to the base of your cake pans. Bake it all together for today's light, buttery and certainly sticky 'Sticky Caramel Buns'.  

It's not a Tuesday night after work bake, it's the leisurely weekend type bake when you have a bit of time and can't make it through Sunday without a sweet treat.  

The recipe calls for a batch of Rose's basic brioche dough that begins with making a sponge.

The "sponge" is a yeast starter. I made mine in a mixer. 

A flour mixture is then sprinkled over the sponge and two hours later you'll have bubbles rising through the blanket of flour in parts. 

Using my stand mixer eggs and softened butter were beaten in. 

The dough goes off to warm spot to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

After rising the resulting dough is off to the fridge. Brioche, like other enriched breads has a refrigerator period to solidify the butter and make the dough easier to handle.  Pictured I'm I'm gently deflating before another rest and chill time. 

The brioche dough was then turned out onto a floured bench top. 

Then dough is rolled out and given a business letter turn. Fold one. 

Fold two. 

Business folded once more. Fold three. 

Fold four.

Now it goes to "sleep" or you do, the dough is wrapped in loosely but securely in plastic wrap and placed in a zip lock bag. I didn't have a bag so I put mine in a plastic container. In the fridge it goes for between 6 and 48 hours to depending your schedule... you rule the brioche... something to tell yourself anyway. 

YAY! it's the next day your dough has matured.

You have soaked your sultanas (US raisins) in *rum and water and reserved the water to make the glaze later on. I used bourbon because there ummm "wasn't any rum in the cupboard". 

Rose uses light Muscovado sugar in this recipe but says light brown sugar would be fine. Muscovado is quite flavourful and worth seeking out on your next grocery run. 

Another bowl holds the rest of your sticky bun filling of light muscovado sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and roasted chopped pecans ready to be stirred together. 

Next the sticky bun topping.  Light muscavdo, golden syrup and unsalted butter are brought to the boil.  I did add something extra, a good pinch of salt.  Cream is added before boiling again and pouring into the base of your cake pan.

I have a lot cake pans and even though Rose does include an extensive cake pan size guide in the book I never seem to have the right ones, Australian cake pans are differently sized.  So I went with a six cup sphere silicone mould and a non stick 22cm cake pan. There is supposed to pecans in the bottom of the pan/pans but due to FUSSY ha ha people that don't like whole nuts I caramelised pecans to serve separately. I popped a food ring in the centre on the non stick pan so I could make a bun wreath. 

You're up to rolling the dough out now,  it's a wonderfully easy dough to work with rolls out beautifully to the 14 by 12 inch (approx 35 by 30 cm) rectangle. 

The dough is brushed with beaten egg and the filling along with the drained sultanas are sprinkled over the surface. The dough is rolled using the ruler to help guide the role if necessary.  

The roll is cut into four pieces, intern each piece is cut into three giving you 12 spiral buns. Six went in the sphere moulds, six in the cake pan, both went off covered with oiled plastic wrap to a warm spot to rise once more.  

A glaze is made by reducing the reserved sultana water and adding butter.

Once the final rise is over, it's time to brush them with the *glaze and bake! Oh you did preheat the oven for an hour and placed inside a baking tray or oven stone to heat.  They took about 25 minutes and were covered with foil after the first ten so they didn't over brown. 

Here is the cake pan buns hot from the oven. Turned out after a few minutes so the bottom becomes the top.

Torn apart to peak at the interior of the buns.  The texture is light and airy. Flavours of cinnamon, toasted pecans complement the juicy bourbon sultanas and butter caramel topping.   

My favourite shape was the half sphere ones, the spiral pattern was distinctive and round and they had the cute domed tops or is that bottoms?

How I'd serve them: either traditional afternoon tea style, tea with lemon or modern as in top pic, adding generous swipes of Crème fraîche on the platter, extra caramel sauce, scatter the pecans, a few fresh raspberries and break your buns, dip in Crème fraîche, drizzle more caramel ... it's sticky and fun eating. Both traditional and modern I would add an "acid" component, even though the golden syrup is slightly acidic I like more so lemon in the tea, berries, Crème fraîche etc.  

Would I change anything: I want more booze or at the other end of the spectrum swap the alcohol out for verjuice. Not sure about the sultana water glaze, I'd probably omit that as I don't think it added much. If I didn't add salt to the caramel I would have used sea salt flakes on top. 

Rose's brioche recipe is my all time favourite for sweet and savoury applications, it's always light but sturdy enough to become a burger bun, buttery but not too buttery, hits all the right notes for a "doing that again"

Fun making my first sticky buns, ha ha I definitely have a gap in my baking repertoire "America" pretty much the whole of America. I always say "it's the first time I've baked.........".  

Happy Baking :)  

Today has been one of the 'Rose's Bread Bible Bakers' bakes where a group of fabulous bakers get together and bake from the pages of 'The Bread Bible'.

 The Bread Bibleby Rose Levy Beranbaum is available from Amazon and all discerning book stores. 

You might also be interested in making a butterflies.   

or a little bit of happiness making the Partridge Family birds.