Cinnamon ,Apples and Raisins

 

 

It has snowed again and I have been so bored! So what to do but go in the kitchen and cook!

 

 

 

Boy, have I made some messes in the kitchen! You can see Steve is shocked at the mess,but no worries….

see it cleans up pretty good!  Well, lets see what went on to make all that mess!

 

What is better than fresh homemade bread for breakfast? Well I think it would be fresh Cinnamon  Raisin Bread! Oh my it was heavenly, and it was not even breakfast time when I stole ,I mean tasted  a piece for quality control.

 

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

 

Makes one large loaf, It could be divided into 2 smaller loaves.

 

3/4 cup very warm water

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 Tblsp sugar

3 1/2  cup flour (I used 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 bread flour)

 

Mix the first 4 ingredients  in stand mixer bowl and let sit for 5 minutes.

Then with dough hook mix in flour. Mix in the mixer just till dough starts to clean the sides of bowl.

Dust counter with flour and knead dough for about 5 minutes ,until smooth and elastic.

Put in butter large bowl and cover and let rise for 2 hours.

Now for the filling,

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 Cup raisins (optional)

 

After dough rises punch down and dust counter with flour and roll dough out into rectangle

Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar,

Add raisins if desired.

Roll up short ways ,and place seam side down in buttered bread pan.

Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Pre heat oven to 350* and bake for 30 minute or until browned on top and hollow sounding when thumped on the bottom.

Ooh, how pretty!  It rose so nice. Lets slice into it! WAIT!!

After it cools of course ,Surely you can wait 15 minutes!

As you can see, I did not roll mine short ways, I should have ! You will have more swirls of wonderful cinnamon if you do.

I must say the taste did not suffer though!

 

 

I had a leftover piece of pie pastry,what to do? When the children were little I would take the pastry that I cut off from the pie and roll it out and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and bake for about 10 minutes and they would eat it like cookies. But the children have grown up and left home so… lets take the leftover pastry and make a grown-up desert, lets make a Gallette.

 

Apple & Orange Cranberry Gallette

 

This is really more of a technique than a recipe. You and substitute any fruit and flavor component. Nuts would be a nice addition I would think.

2 finely chopped apples (peel optional)

1/4 cup dried cranberries

about 1’4 cup orange marmalade

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar(taste your apples to see how sweet they are)

1/4 cup flour

1 Tblsp butter

dash salt

1 egg for egg wash

Roll pastry out on flour dusted counter.

Place on parchment covered cookie sheet. On a side note, parchment paper is wonderful! Please get some and use it, it will make your life so much easier. Not necessarily better but it makes clean up a breeze. Cookies don’t stick. If you don’t have a bread baking peel, you can use parchment paper dusted with corn meal , place your bread dough to rise on it and then slide onto baking stone .It will not stick to bottom of your bread. Okay back to the Gallette…

In large bowl mix apples, cranberries ,cinnamon ,salt ,sugar(to taste) and marmalade and flour, Mix well. Spread out on crust.

Then fold crust up around fruit.

Dot with butter,

Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon& sugar.

Bake @ 350* for 30 to 35 minutes or until fruit is bubbly.

Let cool and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I did not have any vanilla ice cream and it was still really, really good. Like I wanted to eat another piece, I didn’t ,but I really wanted too! Enjoy!

 

Well until we meet again, we are supposed to have more snow on Tuesday into Wednesday and flurries on Thursday. Joy !

I will see what I can think of to whip up for the next batch of weather! Any suggestions?  Steve would like to see if I could fix English Muffins…..We’ll see!