Cinnamon Loaf

I was mentioning reasons why I love this loaf to my boyfriend. Apart from tasting amazing, the real main reason that I make it so often is that it always works. And it looks pretty impressive.

I’m not joking, it is nearly impossible to mess this up. Of course, that means when I was actually doing it for the blog, it went slightly tits up (my fault). I put it in the oven, but I was oh so tired that I decided to have a tiny little nap, and asked my boyfriend to wake me up in 25 minutes in time to check it and turn it etc.

..of course, I was woken up 45 minutes later by a sheepish boyfriend.

Ultimately, it was a little bit darker on top than is ideal, but this resilient loaf was still absolutely divine. Hot from the oven: amazing. Next day, toasted, butter melting on top: STILL AMAZING!

Makes one loaf

Adapted from the Great British Bakeoff Book (goddamit Mary, nailed it yet again)

Ingredients for the loaf

• 500g bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 7g sachet dried yeast
• 125ml milk
• 50g butter
• 1 large egg, room temperature

Ingredients for the filling

• 50g caster sugar
• 1 tsp plain flour
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Milk for brushing

Method

Mix the dry loaf ingredients together.

Gently warm the milk and butter until lukewarm and butter has melted. It always feels a little bit too warm when I do this, so I normally reserve ¼ of the milk and stir it in when everything has melted and been taking off the heat. It’s a fast way to bring the temperature to your liking.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture and the egg, and stir to combine to a rough dough.

At this point I just keep everything in the bowl, sprinkle a little flour in there and begin to kneed in the bowl. Normally I do this by punching down the dough so it is a bit flat. I then fold in a quarter at a time, spinning the bowl around 90 degrees for each quarter. 

This should start to form a little ball on the underside. Kneed for 5 minutes, flip over and cover the bowl with clingfilm.

Leave to rise for an hour until doubled in size.

Take out of the bowl, punch down, form into a rectangle and leave for another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, measure out and mix together the sugar, flour and cinnamon for the filling.

Roll out into a rectangle with a lightly floured rolling pin. The width should be as wide as your loaf tin and about 50cm long. Liberally apply milk to the dough, and sprinkle over/spread out the cinnamon/sugar/flour mix. Leave about 1 inch clear at one short end of the dough.

Starting at the opposite end, roll the loaf from short end to short end, keeping it tight. Place in a prepared loaf tin (greased and lined) and cover with a plastic bag. 

Ignore the flour-nado in the background

Allow to rise for another hour, or until doubled in size. 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Remove the bag, lightly brush with milk and place in the preheated oven. Allow to bake for 35 minutes. You know it is done if it sounds hollow when the bottom is tapped. If it sounds dull, put back in the oven for 5 minutes.

Brush with butter and allow to cool on a cooling rack. (I forgot this bit) Slice when cooled.