Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

For Week 2 of Bread, I decided to make Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread. This was not a completely new bread for me to make. I made it two or three times in 2013 but never got around to writing about it because I was too busy devouring each loaf I made. This marks my third or fourth loaf of this bread, which is definitely worth making more than once.

I didn't get a great rise out of this bread, but I think I deflated it some while I was covering it with foil. The adjustments I made were primarily because those were the ingredients I had at home. I have potatoes but not potato flakes as originally called for. I only got ¼ cup of orange juice out of my single orange, and I didn't feel like cutting up another stick of margarine to melt, so I used some oil. None of these changes hurt the loaf at all.

This bread is amazing. It's healthy-ish with the whole wheat flour.  I've kept the loaf in the metal loaf pan and covered with foil; the bread is still moist and delicious, even on Wednesday, three days after I made it. It doesn't taste too much like whole wheat, even thought I just used standard, hearty whole wheat flour. It makes a great almond butter sandwich and is delightful as toast for breakfast. I encourage you to make this bread. You will be glad that you did.

If you'd like a delicious cinnamon bread made without yeast, try Cinnamon Bread.

📖 Recipe

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Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Author: Leona Konkel

Ingredients

Starter

• 4 ounces whole wheat flour
• 4 ounces water
• ⅛ teaspoon yeast

Final Dough

• 11 ounces whole wheat flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons yeast
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• ¼ cup powdered milk (affiliate link)
• ¼ cup orange juice
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• ½ cup cooked potato (without skin)
• ½ cup milk (mine was soy)

Cinnamon Swirl

• ⅓ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Instructions

Starter

• Mix together flour, water, and yeast until a dough forms. Let rest overnight. (I had forgotten that this was required, so I let mine rest about 7 hours. Close enough.)

Final Dough

• Mix together the starter, flour, yeast, salt, sugar, powdered milk (affiliate link), oil, melted butter, potato, orange juice, and liquid milk in the stand mixer. Mix/knead it at medium speed for 5 minutes. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl to rise in a warm space for about 90 minutes. (I preheated my oven for 1 minute before turning off the heat, and put the dough in the warmed oven to rise for 90 minutes). (I accidentally let it rise an additional 30 minutes as I was baking something else at the time.)
• Pat out dough into a 16x9 inch rectangle and spray the surface with oil. Mix together the sugar, flour, and cinnamon, and spread that over the surface of the dough. Roll up the dough so you have a 9-inch log. Pinch together the seams and tuck them in at the ends, and place the loaf seam-side down in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (affiliate link). Let the loaf rise in a warm space until the dough is about an inch over the top of the loaf pan. (This took about 45 minutes since my oven was running, but the recipe said it could take 90 minutes.) 
• Heat oven to 350F. Bake the loaf for 10 minutes, then cover the top with foil to prevent additional browning and bake it for an additional 35 minutes (the recipe said 40-45 minutes), until the temperature of the loaf is 190F.

Notes

Adapted from King Arthur Flour