My first loaf of bread that actually rose

At about 2pm on Monday, I decided that I needed a project so that checking out cops and secret service agents around the White House on my run was not the biggest event of my day. I ate cinnamon bread every morning in elementary school but no longer like the taste of Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Swirl Bread (without raisins) so without a bakery next door to my building (omg, that would be amazing), the only option left seemed to be to make my own. Having several hours to spare also seems to help when making bread. 

I found a recipe online that I felt I could manage and gathered all the essential ingredients (see above). Choosing to make bread in the afternoon, not too long after having eaten lunch, helped a lot too. I usually choose to make things right when I am craving them and therefore instructions such as, "Let the dough rise for one hour and 45 minutes" become fairly prohibitive. I made the dough over the course of the afternoon. I ended up letting it sit out for a long time in evening because I left for a happy hour engagement before I was done, but that didn't seem to hurt it too badly and may even have helped. Get the recipe I used here. 

There are two things I would change next time. One, I would substitute in whole wheat for 1/3 of the flour. Andrew says this is as much as you can safely do for the bread to still rise. Don't get me wrong, the bread is absolutely delicious but is kind of glaringly white. Second, there was this cinnamon bread that my dad used to bring back with him from fishing trips in Canada that had cinnamon and sugar on the top of the bread. In retrospect, it's pretty impressive (not to mention thoughtful) that he brought back entire loaves of bread from a (at least slightly) foreign country. Anyway, next time I would cover the bread in the egg/milk mixture and then coat on the cinnamon and sugar. 


Also, I'm tagging this with #MSF for "Make Something February." I heard about this bandwagon from my good friend A who writes a For Real Blog called Friends and Hammers. She and at least one other friend are trying to make something every day in February. I'm a little late to the party but am hoping to jump on board. 


Overall, my first bread that actually rose was a positive experience. If it hadn't risen, I'm not sure I could have taken the disappointment.