Cinnamon Bread and a Walk in the Woods

On Sunday mornings our house is filled with a sweet smell of cinnamon and butter.  Sky and Happy (you know, not their real names) are waiting in the kitchen for their favorite breakfast of French toast made with fresh eggs provided by our friends’ backyard chickens and home baked cinnamon bread, made by their mother, me.  The bread is usually baked on Saturday, and what's left of it is turned into breakfast on Sunday.  The following description is of a modified recipe given to me by a friend a long time ago.

Each step of the recipe is shown in a picture... and a picture is worth a thousand words!

How to make Cinnamon Bread

In an electric mixer bowl mix:

2 TBS dried yeast

 1TBS salt

2 TBS sugar

1/4 cup warm tap water

Let stand for about 10 minutes until the yeast wake up, start working and turn all the ingredients into a bubbly mix.

While the yeast is working for you, mix these ingredients in a measuring cup:

Two eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Water to bring the mix up to one cup.

Add this mixture to the yeast, and mix well.

When all the liquids are mixed, add:

3 cups flour (use all white flour or a mix of 2 cups white and 1 cup whole wheat).

Start your mixer, with the dough hook on, at very slow speed.  When all the ingredients are mixed well, increase the speed to medium. Knead for 10 minutes.  The dough should be very elastic and not sticky. If the dough is too wet and sticks to the fingers—slowly add more flour, 1 TBS at a time. If it’s too dry—add water.

Shape the dough into a ball, add a little vegetable oil to the bowl and roll the dough until it’s all coated with oil. Cover with a towel and let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in size, about an hour.

Place the dough on a floured surface. I use a large wooden cutting board. Let it rest for a 2 to 3 minutes, and then roll it to a rectangle. Sprinkle with:

Cinnamon & Sugar

Roll the dough and place in a lightly oiled bread pan, seam side down. Cover with a towel and let it rise again for about an hour.

While the bread is rising it is recommended to go for a walk in the woods....  The day I made the bread in the pictures, my friend, and fellow Friends board member, Dave Moskowitz and I explored the woods off Fresh Ponds Road, just south to Giamerese farm. It was a cold bright day and the woods had lots of surprises for us. Among them were [see pictures]:

An owl pellet

Hibernating beetles under a bark of a dead tree

And old rusty kids bike.

Time flies when you are having fun… after about an hour of exploring it was time to go back and check the bread.

When the bread about doubled in size it is ready to bake.

Pre heat the oven to 400F and place a dish with water at the bottom of the oven - the steam will help create a nice crust.

Place the bread in the oven and lower the temperature to 350F. Bake for 30 minutes. 

Remove from the pan and let the bread cool.  The warm bread is super yummy with some butter or cream cheese. Or Nutella. Any leftover bread can be sliced, frozen, and used for French toast next weekend...

BON APPÉTIT!

More DYI kitchen projects will be published on this blog. For outdoor fun in East Brunswick check out the EB online Parks Guide of the Friends of the Environmental Commission.