Easy Cinnamon Swirl Bread
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Hands down this Cinnamon Swirl Bread makes the BEST TOAST! What could be better than a swirl of cinnamon and butter through a loaf of homemade bread? Nothing!!
Picture freshly made bread, perfectly proofed and rolled around melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar, tucked in a bread pan and baked up. Can’t you just taste it? Oh, and that fresh bread smell mixed with the cinnamon! Dang, now I want to make this loaf AGAIN!!
Our Favorite Bread Recipes
A family favorite is our Peasant Bread, it’s just so easy to make and tastes great! For garlicky flavor try this Garlic Knots Recipe! And our favorite quick bread recipe might just be this Double Chocolate Zucchini Loaf!!
How to knead Bread Dough (also included in the recipe card)
In this recipe, I used a KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough but you don’t need a stand mixer to knead bread! It is easily done by hand!
Kneading the dough helps the gluten to develop, which means it will be stretchy enough to expand while rising.
- Shake some flour on the counter and put your dough ball on it. You will need about 1/2 cup or so of flour for regular bread like this
- Sprinkle a bit of flour on top of the bread and press it out in front of you with your hands
- Grab it, pull it back over itself, and press it out again. You can do this with one hand or two. That’s kneading!
- when the dough STOPS being a sticky mess quit adding more flour to the counter
- keep kneading the dough until it’s smooth and stretchy, generally 8-10 minutes
How to Proof Bread Dough
Proofing or rising bread dough is EASY. I promise. Essentially all you need to do is grease a bowl, add your kneaded dough to the bowl, and turn it to coat all sides of the dough. Then cover the bowl with a lid, a plate, or these reusable bowl covers from NorPro. I just got the bowl covers and I LOVE THEM. They have reduced the amount of plastic wrap and foil I use in the kitchen.
Once you’ve covered the dough bowl place it in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size. Don’t let it rise too much more than doubled in size. Or you’ll have a dough that’s over-proved and it won’t rise quite right. It will still be bread but it will be flat, or flatter than normal, and won’t retain the shape you want it to be in the oven.
What you Need to Make This Bread
- yeast
- sugar
- salt
- flour
- warm milk
- oil
- butter, melted butter not cold butter
- granulated sugar
- ground cinnamon
- stand mixer with a dough hook attachment (OR you can knead by hand, directions in the post AND in the recipe card itself
- bowl cover for the dough
- Wooden spoon for stirring
- mixing bowls
What if I only have active dry yeast and not instant yeast
NO WORRIES. If you only have active dry yeast you can still make this bread! Simply add it to the warm milk with a spoonful of flour and stir it up. Let it set for a minute until it’s bubbly. Then you can use it right in the recipe where it says to add the water to the flour mix. Easy peasy instant yeast replacement
Bread Flour Or All Purpose Flour?
You can use bread flour if you have it. But if you don’t you can just use All-Purpose Flour. Bread four has a higher protein content than regular flour so it makes a stronger dough that forms gluten quickly This recipe was tested with all-purpose flour and it works perfectly. Use what you have!
Whole wheat flour will probably work in this recipe but it will probably have a longer rise time. Both rise times will be longer so be sure to account for that in your planning.
If you have leftovers
This doesn’t happen often but it means your family has great restraint. This cinnamon swirl bread can be kept in a clean recycled bread bag at room temperature for 2-3 days. Toast it up and serve it with homemade butter, here’s one homemade butter recipe and another homemade butter recipe. Both a delicious.
Use it to make the BEST french toast! And you should also TOTALLY make air fryer french toast with any leftover cinnamon bread. And serve it with a mug of this caramel milk!
Cinnamon Swirl Bread
Ingredients
Bread Recipe
- 1 Tablespoon instant yeast sub with active dry yeast and just mix it with the water and a spoonful of flour before using it
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 1 cup milk warmed in the microwave or on the stove top
- 2 Tablespoons oil
Cinnamon Swirl
- 2 Tablespoons butter melted
- ¼ cup sugar can swap out for brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine yeast, sugar, salt, and flour together in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, and stir
- if you ONLY have active dry yeast mix the milk together with the yeast and a spoonful of the flour in a small bowl, let it get bubbly and then add it to the remaining flour, sugar, salt, and oil and proceed to step 4
- Add the warm milk and oil to the flour mixture
- mix with the dough hook on low speed, stopping to scrape down the sides if needed, if you don’t have a stand mixer knead by hand (directions in the notes if you need help)
- Add up to a teaspoon of water or a tablespoon of flour as needed to reach a soft, but kneadable dough – humidity or measuring cup discrepancies can affect the dough. It’s better to err on the side of too soft so don’t add too much flour
- machine knead the dough on low for 5 minutes-see notes below for hand kneading instrcutions
- Remove the dough from the stand mixer bowl and shape it into a nice ball
- oil a medium size bowl and put the dough ball in the greased bowl and turn it to coat the ball with oil
- Cover with a plate, a lid, or a damp kitchen towel and let rise until double – about 1 hour
- Melt butter right before you pat out the dough, and mix sugar and cinnamon together in a separate bowl
- When dough has finished rising, press the dough down to release the air, and roll it out on a lightly floured surface into an oval about 9 inches wide (the length of your bread pan)
- Brush with butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture
- Roll tightly jelly-roll style from the short end
- Place seam side down in a greased 9×5 inch loaf pan, cover again, and let rise until doubled again (about another 45-60 minutes
- Preheat oven to 350º
- Bake bread in the center of the oven until golden brown – about 25 minutes
- cool on a wire rack if you’re not just diving right in a cutting it, it will cut better when it’s cool
