This week I learned a valuable lesson. Several, actually. First: beauty is only crust deep. Second: never wake a sleeping baby. Third: curiosity killed the fermentation.
Lesson one. I had intended to put a cinnamon swirl in the middle of this week's bread, cinnamon raisin walnut bread, . For reasons that will become clear, one loaf did not end up with any sort of swirl, and the other loaf's swirl was incredibly faint. That's alright, though, as this bread was full of a wonderful cinnamon burst and loaded with raisins and walnuts. One of my main pet peeves with buying cinnamon raisin bread from the store is that the cinnamon and raisins always seem like an afterthought.
Lesson two. After setting the loaves out to proof, I realized that I had forgotten to create my cinnamon swirl. Due to the fact that the loaves had already begun to rise, I had to attempt to degas them and quickly create a cinnamon swirl before letting them rise again. I ended up with too much dough to roll out effectively, leading one loaf to squish all the cinnamon sugar out, and leading me to accidentally roll that loaf all around in the resulting cinnamon sugar lake. The loaf itself looked pretty tasty, as it was covered in cinnamon and sugar, but it was not very appealing. The second loaf went better, as I rolled it in the other direction and didn't drown it in the cinnamon sugar.
Lesson three. After putting the loaves back to ferment, the 'ugly' loaf didn't rise out and the 'pretty' loaf didn't stretch out. This wasn't too bad, as the taste really wasn't affected, and it created a pretty interesting look for the stumpy loaf. Next time, I won't be so quick to try to go back a few steps when I should know that it's too late.
When the bread was originally done baking, I was pretty disappointed with the outcome, but by now I've realized the learning opportunity it has provided. Also, since the taste was not affected one bit, I've also realized not to sweat the small stuff.
Without further ado, on to the bread!
This week, after reading the first few chapters of the book, describing cooking procedures, I decided that it would be best for me to start measuring my ingredients out by weight. I surprised myself a bit at how off my volume measurements were, so it turned out to be quite an asset.
This first step was a bit more involved than the previous breads. The first step was the dry ingredients. Flour, sugar, salt, yeast and freshly ground cinnamon from Findlay Market were all whisked together. To that, I added an egg, buttermilk and some shortening.
I didn't take many pictures, because adding the raisins and walnuts was quite a feat. I ended up rolling out the dough, throwing a ton of raisins and walnuts in, then sealing it up in a giant pouch. I repeated this a few times, trying to get the ingredients evenly mixed throughout. I ended up throwing the mess back into the mixer a few times, but this mixture sure doesn't handle like cookie dough, as much as the picture may look like chocolate chip cookie dough. Eventually I figured the raisins just wouldn't end up evenly spaced, and that was okay.
After letting the dough rise, it ended up very airy and of a much different consistency than the previous breads. The dough was very soft and light, so it was fun to handle a different dough. After dividing the dough in half, the aforementioned swirl disaster occurred. I also stopped taking pictures at this point, so we'll skip on to...
If you look closely, you can see the shortness of the loaf on the left and the stumpiness of the loaf on the right. Oh, well...
The loaves still looked quite appealing, regardless of their growth issues. I coated the tops of the loaves with butter and rolled them in cinnamon sugar. You can't see it too well, but it gave the crust a delicious and sweet burst of flavor.
As I said, this bread was positively loaded with raisins. They provided an extra burst of flavor in virtually every bite. The cinnamon flavor was also pervasive, giving every bit of the bread a wonderful scent and flavor, no doubt enhanced by the freshness of the spice. I will definitely be making this again when I need to appease a sweet tooth, but next time, I'll be taking my lessons to heart and treating the dough with a little more respect.
Next weekend, I'll be at home, so it will be my first time making anything vaguely bread-like out of another kitchen. I've decided to make something with an extremely short prep time, so as not to clog up what will doubtlessly be a very busy house.
Cinnamon raisin walnut bread? Check.
Next up? Cinnamon rolls!
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