One Brother and Two Sisters

One of my favorite breads to get at bread shops is the sweet cinnamon chip loaves. So, when we saw these cinnamon chips at our local Amish store, I had to try to recreate my own version... and it turned out FANTASTIC! Enjoy.

Cinna-Burst Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup plus 2 Tbl warm water
1 Tbl butter, softened
2 1/2 Tbl sugar
1 Tbl dry milk powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. bread machine yeast
1/2 cup (or more) cinnamon chips

Directions:

Put everything in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Attach the paddle attachment and mix on low speed for a few seconds to about a minute, or just until the dough starts to come together. Then, remove and clean off the paddle and swap it for the dough hook attachment.
Knead the dough with the dough hook for about 5 minutes on low speed (about speed 2 on a KitchenAid), or until the pulls away from the sides of the bowl, looks smooth, and feels just slightly tacky. Gently poke the dough with your finger and it should bounce back without sticking to you.
Once you are done kneading the dough, remove the dough hook, form into a ball, leave in the bowl of the stand mixer covered with a dish towel and let rise until double in size (30-60 minutes depending on the yeast and temperature of your kitchen).

Just leave the dough on the counter, because if you put it some place too warm (like proofing in a warm oven), the chips will soften and melt and then potentially disappear when you work the dough later to form it into a loaf.

Once the dough is doubled, remove it from the bowl, form into a loaf shape and place into your bread pan. Cover again and let rise until the dough is doming above the lip of your pan.

It can help to place the loaf in a cool oven with the light on, or you can gently warm the oven with a "Proof" or "Warm" setting. Now that you won't be working the dough anymore, it is safe to let it rise faster some place warm.

Proof setting typically is 80-100 degrees, with the oven keeping the temperature consistent.
Warm setting typically is 170-200 degrees, so if you use this, don't let it come all the way up to temp and then turn it off. Most yeast doesn't like to proof higher than 95-100 degrees.
With the oven light turned on only, you are looking at between 75-110 degrees depending on the bulb. Unlike the proof setting, the oven will don't control how cool or hot the oven gets using just the bulb.

Preheat your oven while the dough rises in the loaf pan (unless you are using the oven for proofing, then be sure to remove the loaf from the oven about ten or fifteen minutes before you think it will be done rising and let it finish rising on the counter while your oven preheats). When the loaf is ready, place in a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Mine was perfect in our convection oven at 20 minutes.

Let the loaf rest in the pan for no longer than ten minutes before removing from pan to finish cooling covered with a towel on a wire rack. If you leave it in the pan, the loaf will sweat as it cools and your crust will get soggy.

Marsha's Notes:

I tried to make this in my bread machine, but the chips melted and disappeared in the dough because the bread machine used too much heat during the initial proofing process so when the dough was kneaded again, the chips melted away. This time, I made the bread using my stand mixer and just let the dough rise in the bowl with the heat of the kitchen and the chips stayed perfect.

I also tried to put a few extra chips on the top of the loaf for it's last rise, trying to make the loaf pretty and have plenty of visible chips on the top crust, but most of those chips just fell off during baking/slicing so it wasn't worth it.