BBA#9: Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Loaf

Posted in BBA Challenge, Breads, Desserts, Sweets by

Nine breads down, thirty-four to go!

From cinnamon rolls we follow a similarly delicious path, to a cinnamon-raisin-walnut-loaf  (that’s quite a mouthful!).   Running the risk of eternally jinxing myself, I’ll say that making this bread was a piece of cake, especially considering that I threw caution to the wind and halved the recipe again.

Peter Reinhart offers two variations to the basic recipe: a sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar before rolling the dough into a loaf (creating a beautiful swirl in the center of the bread), and a light coating with melted butter plus cinnamon-sugar on top after baking. I decided to skip the swirl, as both me and beloved prefer to go light on sweets. But the sweet crust on top was impossible to resist, so I complied.

Loaf1

dough9

The dough was very nice to work with, smooth, soft, and rose quite well. But, you don’t have to take my word for it… Just follow the link for additional photos.

I kneaded the dough with my KitchenAid, but added the raisin/walnut mixture by hand, it was such a wonderful dough to play with!  It reached the correct temperature, which always makes me happy… 😉

dough2

The dough rose very well….

dough3dough4

I still need a little practice to get a loaf with uniform size, my loaves always seem to to be lopsided.

dough5dough7

dough8

The bread was awesome right out of the oven, and maybe it was even better toasted the next day. If you have never baked bread and want to start with an easy, tasty recipe, this is a great option… 🙂

Tell me, wouldn’t you love to take a bite?

crumb

Thank you, Mr. Reinhart, for a great recipe!

10 thoughts on “BBA#9: Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Loaf”

  3. Another win, Sally. I want to try this one. A couple of questions–did you bother trying to halve the egg in the recipe and did you use the shortening it called for or did you sub butter? Also,it seems like 3 1/2 cups flour is about what I use for a single loaf, was your loaf smaller than usual?

    Like

    Reply

    • Hello, Jean
      In this particular case I did not bother halving the egg, because I had eggs from the farmers market and some were not that big, I picked a small egg for the recipe. But, if I have to halve it, I usually beat it slightly and eye-ball half of it into the recipe.
      As to the size of the loaf, you are right, it is smaller than a “regular” kind of bread, I’d say 25% smaller (visual estimation).

      Hope you like this recipe. A note from hubby: “go for the swirl…. ”
      🙂

      Like

      Reply

  6. Your bread rose so high and you got a wonderful open crumb. Mine did not rise as high – I think because I weighed it down with the extra sugar and cinnamon in the swirl. But it was so delicious – especially toasted the next day.

    Like

    Reply

  7. Pingback: Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread — Pinch My Salt

  8. Pingback: RUSSIAN TEA COOKIES: WHEN PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF « Bewitching Kitchen

Click here to comment, love to hear from you!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.