The Fresh Loaf

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Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf

holds99's picture
holds99

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf

Yesterday I made Rose Levy's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf from her Bread Bible.  It's an enriched dough, using a sponge and lots of butter (no eggs, except one beaten as a wash for the interior of the rolled dough.  It gets rolled out, an egg wash applied, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and rolled into a loaf.  It's somewhat labor intensive but the recipe produces a really good bread.  However, there's a mistake in her recipe, which if you have Bread Bible, you should note.  On page 261 - "Flour Mixture and Dough", she lists the ingredients: flour, dry milk, instant yeast, unsalted butter, and salt.  In Step 2 she tells you "Combine the ingredients for the flour mixture and add to the sponge."  She fails to tell you to reserve the salt until after the flour, which you cover the sponge with, has bubbled through and you have mixed the butter into the dough.  She later tells you (Page 262, Step 3), after adding the butter and mixing it into the dough, then add the salt.  So, make a note on page 261 to hold the salt out of the Flour Mixture until Step 3: "Mix The Dough".

Anyway, for the "scoring artists" out there, the crust/exterior "look" of this bread is unexciting, but it's great tasting bread.  I mixed it by hand, as I have been doing each time I make a new recipe lately, and I'm going to do it again later.  My "unprofessional" opinion is she over handles the dough a bit.  After 1 hour in the fridge the dough gets divided, rolled out, egg washed sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, rolled up and put into baking pans.  At this point (make a note in your book) the dough needs about 2- 2 1/2 hours at room temp to allow the butter to soften sufficiently so that cold butter (in the center, doesn't inhibit the oven spring/rise).  So, I'm going to try making some changes to the mixing technique and final proof it longer next time and see how it works out.

Instead of using only raisins (per the recipe) I used a mixture of half golden raisins and half dried cranberries and that worked out nicely for both color and taste. 

 Cinnamon Raisin Loaf No. 1

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf: Cinnamon Raisin Loaf No. 1 

 Cinnamon Raisin Bread No. 2

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cinnamon Raisin Loaf: Cinnamon Raisin Bread No. 2

Comments

MaryinHammondsport's picture
MaryinHammondsport

Looks professional, Howard. It sounds like you needed to make a few changes, but they sure worked out well. I'm impressed.

Mary

holds99's picture
holds99

Mary,

I appreciate your kind words.  I really like Rose Levy's recipes.  I also have her Cake Bible but haven't really gotten around to trying any of the recipes.  Soooo many recipes to make.  If I had my way I would bake all the time.  But, that isn't possible.  I may give one of the cake recipes a try next time there's a birthday or anniversary in the family.

Hang in there... and keep baking and posting, I thoroughly enjoy your posts.

 

Howard - St. Augustine, FL

pmccool's picture
pmccool

I came across a minor faux pas in another recipe in Ms. Berenbaum's book, too.  Luckily, I guessed right and things worked well.  Later, I found that there is a listing of errata for the book posted on her web site.  A printed sheet is now tucked into my copy of the book for future reference.  You may wish to do the same.  If memory serves (and it often doesn't), you will have to print it in landscape, rather than portrait, orientation.

It's nice to see an author take responsibility for what they publish and, even better, tell you how to fix the problems.

Paul

holds99's picture
holds99

About a year ago I received one of Rose's Newsletters which gave the download address.  At the time I sownloader, printed the errata sheet and madechanges to all the recipes in the book.  Maybe this one is a later "faux pas".  Thanks for the nudge, I'll go to her web site and download the latest corrections to the book and pencil them in.

Howard - St. Augustine, FL

SteveB's picture
SteveB

Howard,

I've had great success with a cinnamon raisin bread formula that was given to me by a friend who is a professional artisan bread baker:

http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=49

You may want to give it a try sometime. 

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com

holds99's picture
holds99

I really would like to try the formula in breadcetera link.  I will try it next time I make cinnamon loaves.  Rose's recipe is very good but labor intensive.  I have had really good experiences with Rose's recipes and have e-mailed her and she has always been very gracious and helpful.  Don't know if she still does that, now that she's in demand for lectures, making videos and writing more books.  Her ciabatta is terrific and it's one of my wife's favorites, so I make it fairly frequently.  I'm more into whole grain and rye, especially rye.  She also likes rye but asks me to make white sourdough and enriched breads occasionally. 

There's a really great recipe from Browndog (TFL a while back) for Cranberry Nut Breakfast Rolls and/or bread.  They're a homerun.  You should be able to pull it up with SEARCH.  If not let me know if you're interested and I can email it to you.

Thanks again, 

Howard

SteveB's picture
SteveB

Howard,

If you decide to try the formula and have any questions, I'm always here at The Fresh Loaf or at Breadcetera.  My lecture, video and book tour schedule is nowhere near as full as Rose's!  :) 

Thanks for the Cranbury Nut Breakfast Roll suggestion   I'll be sure to check it out. 

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com

holds99's picture
holds99

Steve,

What a great post on breadcetera.  Very well done and the bread looks great.  I'll definitely try it next time around.

Howard - St. Augustine, FL

dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Hi, Howard.

Wow! The swirl definition is extraordinary. I assume the egg wash is responsible. Looks really nice.


David

holds99's picture
holds99

Yes, it's the egg wash that makes the swirls so nice. Rose paints the interior side of the dough with the egg wash, then sprinkes on the sugar/cinnamon mixture and also paints the exterior edges of the dough with the egg wash as it is being rolled up, which keeps any bubbles from forming in between the rolled layers.  Pretty clever...and it works.  Charlene did the exterior painting :-) as I was rolling.

Howard - St. Augustine, FL

hullaf's picture
hullaf

 SteveB, I tried your breadcetera recipe for the cinnamon raisin bread this last weekend and it was so gooood. The dough was fun and easy to work with, though I need more practice with making the swirl. Thanks, Anet

SteveB's picture
SteveB

Anet, I'm glad you enjoyed it.  I hope the directions were fairly straightforward and easy to follow.  Practice makes perfect! 

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com