BREAD! I love its smell as it leaves the oven, I love its variety of textures and tastes, and I love its adaptability. Yeah, I’m kind of in love with it. And, best of all, simple and DIY stuff.
But recently people seem to think that making bread is either some lost art or something so complex that it’s best left to the professionals. Not so! Bread may not be the fastest food to make, but it IS one of the easiest and simplest. So grab your yeast, prep your flour and preheat those ovens, because today, we’re tackling DIY cinnamon honey bread.
What’s in It?
Like most traditional breads, this DIY cinnamon honey bread has flour, water, yeast, oil and salt. What really stands out in this dish is the bold taste of cinnamon and the subtle scent of honey. Why did I choose cinnamon and honey? The cinnamon was chosen because of the honey. Honey makes the bread sweet (obviously).That means that any spices used in the bread really need to interact well with sweet tastes. I could’ve used rosemary or garlic or any other number of great herbs, but then the loaf would taste funny. Cinnamon interacts well with savory and sweet flavors, making it a prime candidate for sweet bread. And in this loaf, the cinnamon is accented with nutmeg, something that I think gives the loaf an extra bit of complexity and tastiness!
Yay tastiness!
And why did I choose honey? I prefer it as a sweetener in bread. Sugar can often make me feel sick, and so can honey for that matter, but honey makes me feel sick far less often. If you choose to use sugar, just be aware that you’ll need to add a little bit more liquid to the bread to compensate.
Of course, you can experiment with ginger, pumpkin and any other number of flavorings for your bread. That’s what makes bread so much fun! You can do it how you want it. And I guarantee that with minimal practice, you’ll be making stuff that is far better than what you’ll find on supermarket shelves.
How do I make it?
The main challenges that people face when they’re making bread are kneading the bread and letting it rise. Let’s talk about them.
Once you understand it, kneading bread is pretty simple. And, even though I recommend kneading most breads, the honest truth is that if you’re using a food processor or standing mixer to pump out your delicious concoctions, you probably don’t need to knead (say that five times fast!). But for those of you doing it by hand, knead as follows.
- Lightly flour a flat surface
- Press the bread away from your body with the heel of palm
- Bunch the bread together again
- Repeat until the dough feels elastic and light
More interesting is why we need to knead bread. It’s because of gluten. Gluten is a protein, and when you give it enough time, it forms into protein chains that give bread its structure. To reduce the amount of time that it takes to for these chains to form, we knead the bread, facilitating the process. Simple enough.
And what about letting bread rise? If there’s one complaint that I hear about making bread, it’s that it never seems to rise the right way for people. There are a lot of ideas about this topic, but what I find most helpful is to do the following:
- Soak the yeast in warm water with a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar for 5 minutes or so
- Mix in with the rest of the water in the recipe, making sure that all of the water is warm, but not too hot
- Mix with the recipe as directed
Does the trick for me every time. You’ll still need the bread to rise for perhaps two hours in total, but it will rise properly. And, if you just decide to double or triple your recipe, you’ll have enough bread to get through the week and perhaps a little extra (and that’ assuming that you eat a lot of bread)! All done in one simple and hands-off process.
Anything else?
Not today! Enjoy that bread, share it around and come back here for more recipes!
- 3.5 cups whole wheat
- 1.25 cups warm water
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- .5 cups honey
- .25 cups extra virgin olive oil
- .25 cups dried milk
- 1 packet instant yeast
- Mix all dry ingredients and all wet ingredients separately
- Mix both sets of ingredients together
- Knead if not using food processor or standing mixer
- Let bread rise, covered, for roughly one hour. Then, place the bread into pans, and allow to rise for one more hour
- Place into 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown
- Enjoy!
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