Master Baker Challenge: Cinnamon Raisin Bread

My first blog event outside of my comfort zone! The ingredient du jour was cinnamon and I have been staring at a canister of raisins in my pantry for weeks trying to figure out what to do with them other than oatmeal raisin cookies or just eating a handful of them.

This is only my 3rd experience with yeast but my 1st successful one. It smelled amazing while it was baking and it tastes even better! My husband usually gets angry when he sees me baking something that doesn't involve chocolate, but I saw the twinkle in his eye when it bit into the first slice, warm out of the oven.

P.S. I was hoping for a swirl in the middle but I'll work on that for next time. I think the dough just swallowed up my sprinkle of cinnamon. Oh well. It still tastes amazing.

Thanks to Nikki at CrazyDelicious for organizing this blogging challenge. I can't wait for the next one!


1 cup raisins
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons fat-free milk
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups bread flour, divided
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, divided
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
non-stick cooking spray

Place raisins in a small saucepan, and cover with water; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 15 minutes. Drain well.

Heat milk over low heat in a small, heavy saucepan to between 100° and 110°; remove from heat. Add butter to pan; stir until butter melts.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine 2 3/4 cups flour, brown sugar, 3/4 tablespoons cinnamon, salt, and yeast in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add warm milk mixture and eggs to flour mixture, and stir until a soft dough forms. Add raisins. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes); add enough of remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough will feel tacky). (I did all of the mixing in my stand mixer with a dough hook at low speed, scraping the sides of the bowl down every 2 minutes.)

Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in size. (Gently press two fingers into dough. If indentation remains, dough has risen enough.) Punch dough down; cover and let rest 5 minutes.

Roll dough into a 14 x 7-inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Evenly sprinkle remaining cinnamon over the surface of the dough. Roll up rectangle tightly, starting with a short edge, pressing firmly to eliminate air pockets; pinch seam and ends to seal. Place roll, seam side down, in a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Bake for 40 minutes or until loaf is browned on bottom and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack.

Yields 16 slices.

Original recipe from Cooking Light
WW info: 3 points per slice

You don't have to Challah!

Or do you? After last week's adventure with yeast (Soft Pretzels), I was game for the next yeasty challenge.

Did you know that the term challah isn't actually the loaf of bread that we associate it with? The word challah actually refers to a small piece of dough (about one-tenth of the total amount of diuhg) that is removed prior to shaping your loaf. A blessing is said over the dough and that small ball of dough is then discarded or burnt in the oven that the bread will bake in. In biblical times, the small ball of dough was given as a tac to the Jewish priesthood. (Thank you WIki, for clarifying all this for me!)

I found this recipe in The New York Times Jewish Cookbook. This cookbook has several challah recipes, I settled on a rather unconventional one: Bejma (Tunisian Triangular Challah). It wasn't my first choice, but one recipe needed 8 hours to rise (who has that kind of time?), the other called for way too much sugar, and the third one's instructions were 2 whole pages long. So I opted for the Bejma,which really didn't seem much different from the others. Flour, eggs, yeast, salt, sugar, oil..... they all had the same ingredients.

Final result: a little dense. Challah should be light and airy...and slightly sweet. I halved this recipe and made two loaves out of the dough. One as a traditional bejma, and the 2nd a traditional Jewish braided loaf. The bejma was actually denser than the braid, probably because the balls are thicker than the strands in the braid. Next tme I'll try one of the other recipes my cookbook ahs to offer, but this bread certainly won't go to waste. French toast, anyone?

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
2 packages active dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons salt
7 cups all-purpose flour

Dissolve the yeast and 1 teaspoons of the sugar in 1 cup of the water in a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir, and let sit for 10 minutes.

Stir into the yeast mixture 3 of the eggs, oil, salt, and the remaining water and sugar. Slowly knead in enough flour to make a soft, tacky dough. Using your hands or a dough hook on the mixer, knead for 10 minutes or until smooth. Turn the dough out onto a floured board, place in a greased bowl, and let rise, covered, for 1 hour.

Punch down the dough and divide into 9 rounds about the size of tennis balls. Place 3 rounds together on a greased cookie sheet, touching, to form a triangle. Repeat with remaining dough. Let rise, uncovered, for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Beat the remaining egg with a little water and brush the dough. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden and loaves sound hollow.

Yields 3 loaves (8 servings per loaf)


WW info: 3 points per slice.

Semi-Homemade Breadsticks

Let's face it ... sometimes you have to play the Sandra Lee card. I am no baker. I've never attempted to make anything that involves yeast. Frankly, working with yeast scares the bejeezus out of me. But I find that preseasoned breadsticks are always waaaay too salty (if you are a fan of my blog, you will rarely see salt as an ingredient), so I figured I'd give this a go. Score! I know most people use crescent roll dough for this sort of item, but I like the slightly denser dough of pizza dough versus the flakiness of crescents.

1 tube Pillsbury refrigerated pizza crust dough
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 Tbsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Open dough tube and spread evenly over a large non-stick baking sheet. Brush about 3/4 of the oil over the surface of the dough. Sprinkle Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and the shredded cheese over oil.

Using a pizza cutter, slice the dough in half down the long length of the baking sheet, and then into 12 strips the other direction, creating a total of 24 breadsticks. Grab the end of each stick and twist each end in the opposite direction of each other, turning the underside of each end up. Firmly press the ends onto the baking sheet and then brush the undersides of the ends with the remaining olive oil.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Yields 24 breadsticks.

WW info: 1 point each

Cornbread

So I bought a new cookbook and as I was flipping through it I found a recipe for cornbread. Now all I've been thinking about since is CORNBREAD. So I went food shopping, bought my cornmeal but forgot the buttermilk. I searched high and low to find a recipe for cornbread that doesn't use buttermilk and my good friend, Cooking Light, had one. Yay! Either way it was pretty yummy. Nice and crumbly like a homemade cornbread should be. Or how I imagine it should be. And I changed the recipe to shave an extra WW point off per serving. The lighting where I took the photo was really bad...it is much more golden in color in real life, but would probably be even more golden with white flour (not whole wheat like I used)

I think I'll make this for Thanksgiving, but in individual mini-loaves. Way better than the canned, fatty crescent rolls. Ick.

1 cup white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons Splenda
1 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup egg substitute
2 tablespoons light butter
non-stick cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine milk, applesauce, and egg substitute; stir well. Add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.

Spoon batter into an 8-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl and drizzle over top of batter in baking dish. Using a knife, swirl it through the batter as though you are "marbling" a cake.

Bake for 20 minutes or until done. Cool 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

Yields 9 servings.

WW info: 2 points per serving.

Blueberry Zucchini Bread & Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread (Take 2)

I did it! I baked! I made a bread! And even Matt likes it! I think the demise of the last time I tried to make this was not squeezing the moisture out of the zucchini and bad baking soda. This is awesome! A definite keeper, and its even Weight Watchers friendly!!!!!!

Original recipe (I made substitutions to lower fat, calories, sugar, and cholesterol)

non-stick cooking spray
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup Egg Beaters
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 cup Splenda
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups white whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries OR 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips OR 1 cup blueberries and 1/3 cup chocolate chips
cinnamon sugar for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray two 8x4 loaf pans with non-stick cooking spray.

After shredding the zucchini, place it in a strainer and press out about 1/2 the liquid.

In a large bowl, beat together the egg, egg beaters, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. If making 2 loaves of the same kind, gently fold in the blueberries or chocolate chips. If making one of each, transfer half the batter to each loaf pan, and then fold in the 1 cup blueberries into one pan and the 2/3 chips into the other. Sprinkle the top of each loaf lightly with cinnamon sugar.

Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 2 loaves (12 slices each).

WW info:
2 points per slice for either type of loaf

Zucchini Blueberry Bread

Someone at work made this this week and it was incredible. So I had to go find a recipe that I could modify to Weight Watchers standards. And I found MASSIVE zucchinis at the Amish farm stand in town, so how could I pass it up?

The original recipe can be found here on allrecipes.com (and its awesome).
I found mine on here on cookinglight.com.

In my recipe, I substituted oil for applesauce and half the sugar for Splenda.

Final result: too dense/wet and way too many blueberries. This could be because I halved the recipe and used a 9" long loaf pan, rather than the 8". But was still very tasty.

Update: For an even better recipe, see my second attempt at baking this bread.