works for me Wednesday - give your whole wheat bread a cinnamon swirl

About 8 years ago I learned how to make really great bread. I have a Bosch mixer (love it!) and have a recipe that is so easy to make using the Bosch. I promise I'll share my recipe (which is a mix of my mom's & my mother-in-law's recipe) sometime soon. I love to make my own bread because I know what goes into it, it's pennies per loaf compared to $2 or $3 or more for a quality loaf of bread from the store, and I can use my own freshly ground whole wheat flour in it or other fun things like oat flour, wheat bran, flax, etc.

Today while I was perusing one of my favorite sites, Everyday Food Storage, I came across a great idea! It's probably not ground breaking to experienced bakers, and it's not a completely new idea to me. It's more like the lightbulb went on for me finally.

EverydayFoodStorage.net has a great tutorial for turning your whole wheat bread dough into a cinnamon loaf.

She also has instructions for making twisty baked doughnuts (can't wait to try that one, too). It's not that making a cinnamon loaf is hard or tricky to do - but just THE IDEA of using my regular bread dough to make something a little special clicked with me today.

We needed more bread anyway, so I whipped up a batch and turned two of my eight loaves (I make smaller loaves)  into yummy cinnamon swirl bread. That bread with just a little bit of butter, cinnamon and sugar was a huge hit here. The kids had to be pried away from it so I could save a couple of slices for my hubby. I loved that they were probably much healthier than regular cinnamon rolls, and just an extra step or two on my regular bread making day.

I need a little more practice perfecting it so I don't have gaps and it's more even, but the taste was divine! This worked for me today and I can promise you that it's probably going to work for me every week I make bread from now on.

UPDATE: My sister and very good baker, Nikki, just gave me a great tip. She mentioned that if I leave out the butter and just put the cinnamon and sugar in the middle of the bread, I won't have the open holes in the swirl. The dough will still stick to itself as it rises and be just as yummy! Then, put butter on top of the finished loaf and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

This post is linked to Tuesday Tips at Couponomic Stimulus Package, Tuesday's Tip Jar at Blog Mommas, and WFMW at Rocks In My Dryer. Check it out!