I mentioned on Monday that I'll
happily spend $50 on baked goods. Reason being I have never been able to successfully bake decent bread myself. I haven't worked out why but bread is my Everest. Most other things I am capable of baking. I think it's the yeast that trips me up. Or the proofing. I have no patience for proofing.
Well yesterday work sent me home after 2 hours (something about spreading my germs around cough cough). I've been sick for almost a week and not improving at all. Anyway I digress....
I'd like to announce that I successfully made a cinnamon pull-apart loaf yesterday! You can find the recipe
here so I won't copy and paste it, but I highly recommend listening to her tips, mainly these 2:
- Reduce the sugar in the filling part of the recipe to 3/4 cup. I had so much extra sugar left over, I sprinkled all of it over the top creating a toothaching sweet outer crust.
- Don't add too much flour to the sticky dough, it's meant to be sticky. My loaf turned out a lot denser than it should have been since I continually added flour to prevent it from sticky while I was kneading it.
Anyway, this is how mine looked along the way...
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| The calm before the storm |
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| Sticky... really sticky |
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| Try to use as little flour as possible - just enough to roll it out without having it stick to the bench |
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| I've made a right hot mess |
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| Melted butter brushed onto dough |
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| The best bit - cinnamon sugar layer!! |
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| Chop chop chop |
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| Laid into a loaf tray |
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| After it's proofed for a further 30 mins |
And 30 minutes in the oven gives you...
Oh it's so damn good. I cut the amount of sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 but next time I'll cut it further to 2/3. The bread is so light and fluffy - a vast improvement from my previous attempts. I think the trick was not to over-flour as I was rolling it out (something I was guilty of doing previously). Maybe next time I'll also substitute half the flour for wholemeal flour?
