Sunday Baking Series: Artisan Cinnamon Raisin Bread

I’ve written before about how much I enjoy baking homemade bread here: Sunday Baking Series: The Miracle of Bread.  After baking many different types of loaves, mostly from Ken Forkish‘s fabulous book Flour Water Salt Yeast, I was ready to branch out on my own.  I thought about playing with new flavors and techniques.  Hubtastic’s vote went to creating artisan cinnamon raisin bread.  We both love the flavor of cinnamon raisin but usually it comes in a squishy sandwich loaf, which isn’t nearly as appropriate for grilled cheese sandwiches on a cold winter night!

A quick online search revealed that not too many people have tried a mash-up like this; most artisan-style cinnamon raisin bread were no-knead versions, which are easy and delicious but lacking that teeth-cracking crunchy crust that a slow-proofed bread has.  I knew that adding sugar would speed proofing time (sugar feeds yeast) which can possibly lead to collapsed bread structure if not monitored closely.  Raisins also could affect the structure (they’re heavy!). 

I probably, were I to play it safe, should have used a 100% white bread recipe for the base loaf, but that’s not how I do things.  Instead, the richer wheat flavor of Ken Forkish’s 75% whole wheat loaf, which can be made in one day, sounded like the perfect foil for the sugar, cinnamon, and raisins.  I had made the loaf before, so I knew what it should look like at each stage of the process– just in case anything went awry after adding the extra ingredients, I could adjust course or toss the dough before wasting too much time. 

The loaf started just like any other dough.  To create the 75% (by weight) whole wheat mix, 750g whole wheat flour went in to a bucket with 250g white AP flour and 800g 95-degree water to autolyze for 30 minutes, followed by folding in 22g salt and 3g yeast.

The recipe requires a few folds in lieu of kneading (as do all the recipes in the book), which is far easier and more hands-off.  I held off on adding the improv’d ingredients until the second fold to minimize any effect they’d have on the structure of the dough as it developed.  I wildly guessed and added 240g raisins, 90g brown sugar, and 12g ground cinnamon.

Yes, by weight!

I folded in the new ingredients and let the dough rise, fold again, and rise again just like normal.  No signs of anything too funky happening yet! 

I really thought that the dough would be super sticky and hard to work with, but fortunately, it behaved just like any other bread dough– soft and pliable, but sturdy enough to hold a shape while handled.  Raisins did keep escaping during shaping, but I’d just stick them right back in.  The loaves prooved in the baskets just like usual too…

I chose to do two different shapes of loaves to go with my two different shapes of Dutch ovens.  The round loaf is more classic for artisan boules, but the long loaf is much easier to slice and share.  These loaves bake at 475F for 30 minutes covered in Dutch ovens, which helps trap steam and allow the loaves to spring up, about double, before the crust sets.  Having to bake these without seeing them certainly upped the ante!  Would a whole day’s work be worth it?

The house began to fill with the scents of carmelizing sugar and cinnamon, and I took that as a good sign.  After the first 30 minutes of baking, I took the lids off and breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing two totally normal looking loaves of bread.  20 more minutes, and the crust was a dark, dark brown and the internal temp was just around 200F.  

2 agonizing hours later, we finally got to bust into a loaf, and it was every bit as sweet, rich, and fragrant as we’d hoped.  It’s very rare that I get a new recipe right on the first try, but here we are!  I have made this loaf at least 4 times since my first risky try and have used different base recipes depending on how much time I have and what I feel like doing, but I always include at least a little whole wheat for the nutty balance to the brown sugar.

This bread needs absolutely nothing aside from a little butter and flake salt, but if you must mess with it, it’s closest friends are green apples and cheddar cheese. We may or may not have done this for dinner many times.

Now that I’ve done the risk-taking for you, get in the kitchen and try it out for yourself. The base recipe I used is one of Forkish’s “Saturday” recipes, so if you start relatively early, the bread comes out of the oven by dinnertime. This snowy holiday time of year is the perfect opportunity to spend a relaxed day in the kitchen with helpful and/or bored visitors and a toasty hot oven.