Homemade Cinnamon Swirl Egg Bread
I've made quite a few loaves of this bread since moving into my rental, and after I mentioned it several times, you guys asked if I had shared the recipe.
And oddly, I had not!
It's basically a modified version of the egg bread dough I posted some years back, but I thought it would be easier to give it its own post rather than trying to add the modifications into the egg bread recipe post.
This makes a lovely little thank you gift, or, "I'm thinking of you." gift, or, "I'm sorry you're having a rough time." gift.
And it also is a lovely thing to make just if you want to eat it yourself. 😉
To make this, start by mixing 2 cups of flour plus the yeast in a mixer bowl.
Heat up the milk, sugar, salt, and butter together until the butter melts and the mixture reaches 120-130° F. I just heat this mixture straight in the measuring cup; saves a dish!
With the mixer running, pour in the warm milk mixture. Then add the eggs. Beat on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds.
Beat on high speed for three minutes, and then mix in enough flour to make a soft but kneadable dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface.
Knead for 5-7 minutes, adding flour as necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Note: if you usually knead your dough in the mixer with the dough hook, feel free to do that instead. It'll be fine! I just learned to make dough with hand-kneading and I guess I'm stuck in my ways. 😉
Put the dough back into the mixing bowl (I don't even bother washing it out), cover the bowl with a wet tea towel, and let the dough rise in a warm place until it's doubled, about an hour.
The amount of time this will take depends on the temperature of your house; it'll be faster in the summer than the winter!
Turn the risen dough back out onto the floured counter, divide in half, and roll each half into a 12x7 inch rectangle.
Time to turn this into some cinnamon bread! Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl.
Brush each dough rectangle with water, and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Roll up, starting from the short end, and place each loaf into a greased 8x4 inch loaf pan.
Cover with a wet tea towel again, and let rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes.
Preheat your oven (always let it fully preheat for yeast bread!) to 350° F. Bake loaves in the preheated hot oven for 25-30 minutes; remove loaves from pans, and let cool on a wire rack.
I really, really love these cooling racks because the wires are so nice and close together; they don't leave indentations on fresh yeast bread.
I always want to eat the bread right away, but it is much easier to slice if you let it cool for a little while first.
This is good toasted, or you can microwave individual slices and butter them.
I'm sure it would make good French toast too, but I have never tried that; my girls always eat the bread as-is!
Scroll down for the printable recipe.
Homemade Cinnamon Swirl Egg Bread
An egg bread dough swirled with cinnamon and sugar; so tasty served warm with butter!
Ingredients
Dough
- 4¾ cups all-purpose flour (up to 5¼ cups may be necessary)
- 2¼ teaspoons (1 pkg.) dry active yeast
- 1⅓ cups milk
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
Cinnamon Sugar filling
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Instructions
Notes
I like Gold Medal Unbleached or King Arthur All-Purpose flour.
This bread is a great way to use slightly soured milk; the sourness is not at all apparent in the finished bread.
To make dairy-free use a non-dairy milk and a non-dairy butter substitute.
Nutrition Information
Yield 32 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 112Total Fat 2gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 16mgSodium 87mgCarbohydrates 20gFiber 1gSugar 6gProtein 3g
It looks delicious. I am making potato water bread today since I made mashed potatoes the other day and saved the water they were cooked in.
I will make one a dese days with raisins--my girl is all about the cinnamon raisin bread.
Hi, Kristen. I love your recipes and made some of them. I wonder why you manually knead instead of letting your mixer do all of it? I have a hard time kneading by hand for that long as well as it's a lot cleaner to just have the machine do it.
If you were to let the machine just do it, would it take the same 5-7 additional minutes?
Thanks!
@cp, Not Kristen, but I've always understood the warmth of the hands is a plus when kneading bread.
@Rose,
that is what my grandmother always said
Mmm. Bread baking season is upon us. I'm so sad for my friends who can't have gluten. Thanks for the recipe! I love that it makes 2 loaves. I have several variations of cinnamon bread recipes that make 1 loaf and yes, I can double them, but sometimes I'm lazy about doing math.
That looks delicious and I might try this as a gift - if I can trust myself to leave it alone.
I had the same question as CP - why turn it out and knead it by hand? I've made lots of bread in the mixer using the dough hook, back when I baked much of our bread and I
wasn't gluten-free, and it turned out wonderfully letting the Kitchen Aid do it for me. A bonus was that it took less time to knead, at least for me. I kneaded until it clung to the dough hook in a big ball, which was pretty quick.
There may be a good reason to knead it by hand, of course, but I was curious as to why use the machine at all if it wasn't going to do the whole thing. Before I had a stand mixer, I just mixed it by hand in a big bowl with a wooden spoon, flipped the dough out, kneaded it, loosely wiped out the bowl with clean hands, greased the bowl and flipped the dough back in to rise.
I don't have a good answer for this! Ha. I just learned to make bread by starting it in the mixer and then finishing the kneading by hand. I learned using old recipes, and maybe at that time mixers weren't strong enough to do all the kneading? I don't know!
But yeah, I'm sure this would work fine if you wanted to do all the kneading in the mixer. I'll edit the post to say so!
Hi Kristin! Do you have a link for your digital thermometer? I have been needing a new one and I love all your recommendations as they work well and last forever!
Sure! It's a ThermoPop and I really like it. It's not quite as nice as the one I left at my house when I moved out, but it is way, way cheaper and it works fine. https://www.thermoworks.com/thermopop/
I used to have a Thermapen: https://www.thermoworks.com/shop/products/thermapens/
Does anyone remember the post where Kristen (or Kristen!, if you read this) shared her microwave chocolate oatmeal recipe? I'm daydreaming about it and don't see it, but I know it was fairly recent!
I shared that in an instagram reel about a year ago, but I don't think I ever shared it here. I will put that on my to-do list.
@Kristen, Thank you!! 🙂
Thank you for sharing the recipe!
May I ask where you bought the Hello Kitty Pyrex measuring cup? I'm huge Hello Kitty fan and would love to buy one for myself!
Thank you,
Alicia
I bought it right from Pyrex! They have a whole character collection page: https://www.pyrexhome.com/shop/character-collections
Can this bread be frozen?
Yep! Just put it into an airtight plastic bag. I freeze mine all the time.
What's the 1/4 after step 1?
Ohhh, whoops! That was a typo; it should be removed now.
Thanks for letting me know it was there!
What a great recipe! I doubled it to make 4 loaves, and let my Bosch do the kneading for 8 min. And I only let the dough rest in the Bosch bowl for 10 min before forming into loaves and letting them rise in the pans because I used instant yeast. I think I'll make a triple batch next time. My family loved it.