On the heels of my last bread recipe, I was itching to try something different, (seeing as I conquered my apprehension of working with yeast and dough), I decided to make Cinnamon Raisin bread, which is my mom’s favorite bread.

This took much longer than the first bread recipe, not exactly sure why, but I felt like I spent the whole day baking! Simple, simple recipe and if you’re up for it, you’ll love it!

To make homemade cinnamon raisin bread, here’s what you’ll need:

3 cups white, all purpose, bleached flour
1 package quick rising active dry yeast
1/2 cup milk
1.5 tbsps butter
1 tsp salt
1.5 tbsps Turbinado raw sugar
1 cup warm water
Cooking oil spray
Rectangular baking pan
1 cup raisins
1.5 tsps ground Cinnamon
3 tbsps Turbinado raw sugar
2 tbsps all purpose flour

1. Follow my basic bread recipe up to the 7th photo. Cover with napkin and return to unheated oven for another hour to rise some more.

2. While dough is rising, put raisins in a bowl. Add enough water to cover bottom of the bowl (to plump up the raisins; too much water will take away the sweetness of the raisins).

3. Set aside. In another bowl, mix cinnamon and sugar

4. Set aside, drain raisins and mix with 2 tbsps flour.

5. If an hour has elapsed, remove dough from oven. Lightly flour work surface, then punch dough down to deflate. Using a rolling pin (or wine bottle!) shape dough into a rectangle. Sprinkle cinnamon/sugar mix onto top of dough.

6. Sprinkle raisins onto top of sugar mix and pat down with floured spoon.

7. Gently roll dough into a log. Spray a baking pan with cooking oil spray. Put rolled dough into greased baking pan.

8. Return covered with a cloth to unheated oven to rise for another 1.5 hrs

9. With pan still in oven, remove cloth and heat oven to 375 degrees. *If you like a crunchy crust, mist with water anywhere from 5-10 times*. Bake for 30-45 minutes (or till top is golden brown). Remove once done, let cool in pan for 5 minutes.

10. Transfer to plate and let cool completely before slicing.

Voila! You have Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Bread!

The aroma from baking this bread is literally intoxicating! It smells so good, you almost can’t wait for it to be done! Sweet, but not too sweet; sticky center, but not too sticky! The only thing I didn’t like was the crust, I misted it with water to get it crunchy (similar to the crust on French bread). Skip that step if you don’t want that kind of crust.

I know it’s very daunting to make bread, but I can guarantee that once you cross that hurdle, its relatively easy from there and you’ll want to keep trying new bread recipes. By no means have I perfected my bread recipe. It keeps well up to a week, but after that, it’ gets hard.

Commercial bread has a lot of preservatives in it to help it remain soft week after week and by extension, have a longer shelf life. Here is a post that best explains this. I’m not suggesting that you should stop buying store bought bread, oh no!, I’m just saying once you try baking your own bread, you’ll want to keep doing so. I’ll still buy commercial bread, every now and then, but definitely not on a regular basis.

Leftovers can be made into cinnamon raisin bread pudding, just add the egg wash, the cinnamon and raisin part has already been taken care of.

Enough rambling already!

Enjoy…