Cherry Walnut Whole Grain Celebration Bread

I have well and truly reached a milestone in the BBA Challenge. Not only is Cranberry {Cherry} Walnut {Whole Grain} Celebration Bread the last in a rather lengthy run of sweetened enriched breads in The Bread Baker's Apprentice book, it's also the final bread in the "C" section of the book. I don't know which milestone has me grinning wider. But what is the happiest thing of all is that this bread is really delicious. Despite the fact that I was totally unmotivated to bake this one (I mean, I've baked tons of different celebration-type loaves this year) one taste of this bread changed my attitude. In fact, even though I fully intended to give most of it away, we toasted up and enjoyed every last slice ourselves.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I knew that we would enjoy this bread more if it had a bit of whole grain flour in it. I routinely add rye flour, oat flour and whole wheat flour to my toasting loaves, and love it there, so I added a bit of each flour to this dough. To compensate for the reduced amount of gluten in those flours I used some high gluten flour too.

- Peter Reinhart gives a choice of liquids to use in the recipe. I chose the buttermilk and the lemon juice options - I reduced the quantity of lemon juice because I didn't want the bread to be too citrus-y.

- I substituted dried cherries for the cranberries, and reduced the quantity from 9 to 6 ounces. I toasted my walnuts and added another half ounce or so to the 3 ounces in the recipe

- Although the bread in the book was baked as a double braid loaf on a baking sheet, it can also be baked in loaf pans. I prepared two 8.5" x 4.5" pans (so I could give at least one loaf away), braided the dough, and placed it in the pans, for a braided pan loaf. The dough didn't fill the pans very full and I almost used smaller pans but these were already greased and I was too lazy to wash them and grease smaller pans. Sure enough, they ended up being small loaves. I'm guessing that all of the dough would have fit nicely into a 9" x 5" pan.


the verdict:

This bread was good sliced while still warm and really delicious toasted with butter. I love the nuttiness from the whole grain flour and the toasted nuts. The amount of cherries was perfect for us, so I'm glad I made the adjustments that I did.
I asked my husband how this bread compares to the cinnamon raisin bread, and he commented, "it's even better - hard to believe!"

I'm sending this bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly compilation of all yeasty goodness on blogs throughout the bread-baking world.

World Bread Day: Simple Milk Loaf

Today is World Bread Day, and I'm excited to celebrate it on my bread blog! On this day last year, 246 bread bakers around the globe came together over bread. Click here to see the roundup of the diverse and fabulous breads that they baked and shared with the world. I have no doubt that this year there will be even more breads represented.

At this time last year I wasn't aware of World Bread Day, and had never worked with yeast. The very idea of it scared me! All that changed last November when I baked a Kugelhopf for the baking group Tuesdays with Dorie, and I was bitten hard by the bread bug. Christmas saw me stocking up on a few bread-y supplies and in January 2009 my yeast baking began in earnest. The rest, as they say, is history. (You can find my baby steps and early loaves on my other food blog, The Dogs Eat the Crumbs - click here to see the posts in my "Adventures in Yeast" series.)



My bread for World Bread Day is the Simple Milk Loaf. This is a recipe from the creative and generous UK baker Dan Lepard. One of my Christmas presents was Dan's book The Art of Handmade Bread, published in the UK as The Handmade Loaf. It is a volume of "contemporary European recipes for the home baker" and contains a wide array of breads made from every type of grain, many employing sourdough starters. This was heady stuff for a novice baker, but my husband leafed through and stopped right at p. 46: "This Simple Milk Loaf looks great. Why don't you make it?" And so I did. It's a perfectly accessible recipe, with no obscure ingredients or tricky techniques. The resulting loaf was the most delicious farmhouse white bread I've ever tasted. Toasted, with butter, it was the closest I'll come to tasting heaven on earth.


In the past 6 months I've baked this bread countless times, nearly always in a double batch, and always with a healthy dose of whole grain flours. I give at least one loaf of every batch away, and it never fails to receive rave reviews. I've shared the recipe with a couple dozen people, most of whom love it as I do.


The bread can be made with one bowl, one small ramekin, one measuring spoon and a scale. With a 4 hour time period and minimal hands-on work you can produce one of the most versatile and tasty loaves you'll ever eat, right in your very own oven.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- [edit: the original recipe links that I posted are now broken. Please see the recipe at the end of this post, below]

- Here is the easiest way to prepare the dough:

1. Melt the butter. I do that in a ramekin in the microwave.

2. Place a bowl on the digital scale and weigh out the milk and the maple syrup, then warm them slightly in the microwave. Stir in the fresh yeast.

3. Place the bowl back onto the scale and weigh the dry ingredients directly on top of the wet ones. For readers in the US, "strong" flour is the same as bread flour. The standard mix I've come to use is 60% bread flour, and 40% a mixture of oat flour, rye flour, and whole wheat flour. It still comes off as a nearly-white bread, and I like the extra nutty flavor from the whole grains.

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients with your fingers - the book says to "squidge" it, which is exactly what you're doing. This part will bring you back to your childhood, making mudpies in the backyard. Pour the warm melted butter and squidge some more. This will actually un-stick much of the dough from your fingers.

5. Dan's kneading method is simple, unusual, and very effective - you will knead the dough on an oiled counter for 10 seconds every 10 minutes, for three rounds. The first time, leave the dough on the counter while you wash and dry the bowl. This gives the dough some helpful rest time, Dan says, but if you're in a hurry, you can get a second, clean, bowl out for the kneaded dough. The dough is so supple and delicious to feel, that it's hard to stop kneading after 10 seconds. Nothing bad will happen if you end up giving it an extra knead or 10.


6. The bread rises in the pan very vigorously, and usually gives a good spring in the oven to boot. I've baked it in an 8.5" x 4.5" pan, and a 9" x 5" pan, and in a lot of other unusual sizes. A single batch always yields 900 grams of dough, so that helps in dividing the dough to shape the balls. I've settled on baking double batches in 4 smallish pans, so each ball ends up being 225 grams. It only takes a few minutes to portion the dough, form the balls and drop them into their waiting oiled and floured pans.

the verdict:

This bread is a wonderful way to get your hands into bread-making. It doesn't give sore arms, 30 seconds of kneading is hardly strenuous, but does produce a lovely loaf to eat or to share.

Happy World Bread Day!


I'm also sending this Milk Loaf to Yeastspotting, a weekly compendium of all things yeasty.

[edit to add recipe, since the links I had are both broken, and further edited on 4/24/11 to add volume measurements:]

Simple Milk Loaf

Ingredients

1½ tsp fresh yeast, crumbled [or 1/2 tsp instant yeast, added with dry ingredients]
350g/12oz/1 1/2 cups whole milk, at room temperature, plus extra for brushing
20g/¾oz/1 Tbsp golden or maple syrup
250g/9oz/2 cups plain white flour
250g/9oz/1 3/4 cups strong white flour
1¼ tsp fine sea salt
25g/1oz/2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
olive oil, for greasing
flour, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 210C/410F/Gas 6.

2. Place the yeast, milk and syrup into a large bowl and whisk together.

3. Add the flour and salt and mix with your hands to bring together as a soft, sticky dough.

4. Pour over the warm melted butter and mix this into the dough with your hands, then cover the bowl and leave to stand for ten minutes.

5. Grease your hands and a flat clean surface with olive oil. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead for ten seconds, then form the dough into a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and grease with olive oil, then return the dough ball to the bowl and leave for a further ten minutes.

6. Repeat this ten-second kneading and resting process every ten minutes twice, then leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

7. Grease a deep 12x19cm/5x8in loaf tin and dust with flour. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape into two balls and place side-by-side into the loaf tin. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise for one and a half hours, or until almost doubled in height.

8. Brush the top of the loaf with a little milk and place into the preheated oven to bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is a shiny dark brown and the loaf has come away from the sides of the tin.

9. Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

BBA Slow & Steady #9: Cinnamon Raisin Bread Roundup

Although I'm a bit behind on posting the roundups, the bakers of Slow & Steady subgroup of the BBA Challenge have been oh-so-steadily (if slowly) baking our way through Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This bread - Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread - was baked as a loaf bread by all of the S&S bakers, and was universally loved.

Karen, of the blog Shortbread, put together an epic BBA post - ciabatta, cinnamon rolls and cinnamon raisin walnut bread all in one fell swoop. Her loaf is so pretty (pictured above), and Karen found it a "terrific" breakfast bread. Here's her post: Bread Baking Blitz Ciabatta, Cinnamon Buns, and Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

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Sarah, of Blue Ridge Baker, "loved everything" about this bread, especially the generous amount of raisins and nuts. No "raisin-poor" bread here! Read her post: BBA Challenge: Cinnamon Raisin Pecan Bread post

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Natalia of Gatti, Fili e Farina enjoyed this bread which she made using her own sourdough starter. She loved the bread so much - toasted with jam - that she missed it when it was gone. I know that feeling! Her post: BBA Slow and Steady Cinnamon Raisins Hazelnuts Bread

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Jessica (of The Singleton in the Kitchen) and her inner 5 year old were not in the mood for more sweet yeast bread, but they baked this bread and both of them ended up loving it! Wonder if they'll feel the same way about the cranberry walnut bread (the last sweet bread in BBA for a good long while). Jessica's post: BBA S&S: Cinnamon Swirl Bread

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This bread turned out to be a forgotten pleasure for Di, of Di's Kitchen Notebook, one of those foods that she doesn't often remember but loves to eat. She subbed some whole wheat flour and made one loaf with and one without the optional cinnamon swirl. My bet is that Di won't forget about this bread any time soon. Di's post: To swirl or not to swirl

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Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table titled her post BBA Challenge: Cinnamon Raisin Walnut bread but really there were no walnuts in sight, as her family persists in not liking nuts in their baked goods. Kayte reports that this was the best cinnamon raisin bread she's ever eaten, adding: "make this one even if you don't make anything else!"

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Leslie of Lethally Delicious typically purchases an artisan version of cinnamon raisin bread, but she realized, "I guess I'm an artisan now, because this was a ringer for my favorite loaf," and is happily contemplating how she'll bake and enjoy her future loaves of this bread. Her post: BBA - Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

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Overcoming a few misgivings, Audrey of Food From Books welcomed shortening into her home just for this week's bread recipe. She made her bread cinnamon raisin pecan swirl and loved the crumb and the taste, although she'd reduce the cinnamon in the dough next time. Bread Baker's Apprentice #9- Cinnamon Swirl Bread

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After years of bread machine loaves, Margaret of Tea and Scones has discovered a love of baking bread by hand. Even though she isn't the biggest fan of raisins, she put them in this bread and found the end result "sweet, earthy, great for toasting."

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Despite a "mutant swirl" that was reminiscent of punctuation marks, Cathy of The Tortefeasor, loved her cinnamon walnut swirl bread. She also took a minute to reflect on how much she loves baking bread, observing: "It's like a little miracle happens every time that dough rises." That's something that the rest of the Slow and Steady bakers would agree with! Cathy's post: BBA: Cinnamon Raisin(less) Walnut "Swirl" Bread

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Our family has always held cinnamon raisin bread near and dear to our hearts, and I found that this recipe (which I modified to add some whole grain flour) met or exceeded my "gold standard," Rudi's. I also baked the transitional cinnamon raisin bread from Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread book, and liked it even more! Read my post here: The Quest for a Perfect Cinnamon Raisin Bread {bba}

Come back in the next few days for more BBA goodness - we're about to exit the "C" section of the book!

LiveSTRONG with a Taste of...Corn: Bacon Cornbread {bba}

A couple of days ago my baking friend Di, of the blog Di's Kitchen Notebook, had a lovely post. She baked beautiful - and delicious looking - intensely yellow lemon bars, and posted them as a tribute to her first husband, in connection with of the LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow food blogging event dedicated to cancer awareness (in support of Lance Armstrong's LiveSTRONG Foundation). I was touched and inspired by Di's story, and when I realized that I had just that day baked some very yellow cornbread I decided to join in the event also (the main requirement is to prepare a food or drink with a yellow ingredient and write a blog post featuring it).

Hardly a day passes when I'm not touched by cancer in ways big or small, and I'm sure that's true of the vast majority of you all too. Friends, neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, strangers in the news tell their stories . This illness strikes every manner of folk, and like ripples from a stone cast into a pond, the effects of the disease spread, affecting not just the patients but those around them, their medical providers, and their care givers.

The person who I'd like to honor with this post - this bread! - is my father Joe, who died from the effects of a brain tumor on January 2, 2007. He was smart, funny, stubborn, reserved, and generous. He made his living in computers, almost from the day that they were invented, and after he retired Dad always stayed techologically current; until the day he died at age 80 he'd sit at his computer conducting his business affairs and Googling anything that came his way. In his retirement he became a used book dealer, and so many of my treasured cookbooks (and many many other books) came from him.

My dad died before I became a food blogger, but I know he'd be tickled by my two blogs, and being a fan of all things delicious, he'd love reading about - and tasting as often as possible - the food I cook and bake in my kitchen. He loved meat, and he loved bread, and I have a very strong feeling that he'd have loved this bacon cornbread! And I have to say that every time I think about how my father would have enjoyed this bread, I really, really wish he were here to taste some (it's tucked snugly in my freezer).


the bread:

I baked Peter Reinhart's Bacon Cornbread because it is the next bread in our A-Z progression through his wonderful book The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It is the one and only quick bread in the entire book; Reinhart says he had to include it because it is so perfect.

There are many people who hold very passionate - and quite differing - opinions about how cornbread should taste. The short rundown is that, in the US, Northerners tend to like sweet cornbread, and Southerners, who have a penchant for making everything in the kitchen just a little sweeter, actually like "unsweet" cornbread. (Go figure!) I've lived in both regions and eaten - and baked - plenty of cornbread, and I'll enjoy any cornbread that isn't dry and isn't toothachingly sugary.

I read lots of advance reports from the BBA Challenge participants raving about this bread, so I was hopeful that we'd enjoy it also.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- My original plan was to skip the whole corn kernels that are in the recipe, and to make bacon-topped muffins (which Reinhart gives as a variation).

- After some back-and-forth with a few of my baking friends, I decided to make some kernel-less muffins and bake the rest of the batter, including the fresh corn, in a small cast iron skillet. I cut some fresh corn off the cob and set it aside. (You can guess what happened, right?)

- The recipe specifies "polenta" style coarse ground cornmeal. I didn't have any, but did have a ton of other cornmeal. Rather than buy special cornmeal, I used 2 different kinds of cornmeal and threw in some stone ground grits for good measure.

- I used used maple syrup in place of honey.

- My bacon was Broadbent black pepper bacon.

- Reinhart says to fill the muffin cups full, but I found they were too full, and they rose + spread more than I wanted. The only way I got them out of the pan was because it was silicone.

- I preheated my iron skillet in the hot oven. Then I poured in bacon grease, added the batter, studded the top with bacon and popped it in the oven. At which point I discovered the bowl of corn kernels. I pulled it back out and tried to tuck some in and around the bacon, as I watched the hot iron skillet begin to bake the batter before my eyes. I didn't get much added before putting it back in the oven.

- The cornbread in the iron skillet popped right out of the pan. I let it cool, then wrapped it tightly and froze it whole.

the verdict:

My husband, who doesn't usually care one way or the other about cornbread, said, "this is da#n good!" I had been concerned about the amount of sugar and other sweeteners in the batter, but the finished bread was moist, savory, a touch sweet (but thankfully not sugary) The crumb was sturdy and tender.

The more I think about it, the more I think it was a perfect tribute to my Dad.


{Note: Those of us in the Slow & Steady subgroup of the BBA Challenge are trying to post our breads every two weeks. I was a week or so late with my Cinnamon Raisin Bread and am actually a few days early with this Cornbread, but I wanted to meet the LiveSTRONG With a Taste of Yellow deadline. I will be posting the Cinnamon Raisin Bread roundup in a few days and the Cornbread roundup in late September.}

The Quest for a Perfect Cinnamon Raisin Bread {bba}

I've never been that kind of person who is always winning things like lotteries and drawings. But back in 1988 we won a trip to Aspen, Colorado in an American Express promotion. (Actually it turned out to be quite a lucky year for us; we also won a trip to Palm Beach, complete with a set of luggage!)

We chose to take the Aspen trip in the summer when we could hike in the Rockies. So in July 1989 our family had a lovely week in a condo on the mountain at Snowmass. My parents and brother decided to join us and rented a nearby unit. Five adults to watch 2 children (ages 1 and 3) made for a very relaxing trip indeed.

On a grocery run to stock the condo with breakfast food my husband picked up some bread and thus we discovered the Holy Grail of cinnamon raisin bread. Rudi's Bakery made the best we'd ever tasted. We bought loaf after loaf that week, and brought some home in our luggage, but all too soon we reached the end of our supply.


For Christmas that year I called Rudi's Bakery on the telephone. No, they didn't distribute their bread outside of Colorado, nor did they take orders - usually. As a special exception the fellow at the bakery actually agreed to sell me 5 loafs of the raisin bread and personally went to the post office to mail it to me! I still count that as the best Christmas gift I ever gave my husband!

Fast forward to about 5 years ago: Whole Foods opened a location just a few miles from us. My first time in the store I wandered the aisles and browsed all the departments to see what kinds of things the store carried. When I came to the bread shelf I could hardly believe my eyes: Our old friend Rudi's Cinnamon Raisin Bread was right there in front of me. I scooped up a few loaves and we were delighted to find that the bread tasted just as good as we remembered. Seems that in the intervening 15 years, Rudi's Bakery had gone national. So we've had a ready source for what we'd come to believe is the best cinnamon raisin bread on the planet.

Rudi's bread is the standard by which I judge every other cinnamon raisin loaf I've ever tasted. So far, none has come close. I'm not sure when I'd have ever dared to undertake homemade cinnamon raisin bread but BBA Challenge gave me the push; Cinnamon Raisin Bread happens to be the next bread in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. (And, yes, there has been a lot of cinnamon goodness lately here on Corner Loaf)

Rather than make the bread exactly as written, I decided to make a run at Rudi's! This meant making a few changes to transform a white cinnamon bread to one that was about a third whole grain.

A week later I baked the Transitional Cinnamon Raisin bread, from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, which is about half whole grain and half white flour. I've included both baking sessions in this post, starting with the BBA bread.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread - The Bread Baker's Apprentice

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe on the Google Books preview, here.

- This bread is made with the direct method, which means that it is mixed and proofed in one day, with only a short wait for the dough to "ferment" on the counter.

- Instead of the 16 ounces of bread flour of the recipe, I used 10 ounces of bread flour, 2.5 ounces of oat flour, 2.5 ounces of white whole wheat flour, and 1 ounce of high-gluten flour.

- I mixed golden and dark raisins.

- For some added depth of sweetness (and because Rudi's has it) I added 2 tsp molasses.

- I divided my dough into three portions:

-- The first loaf was cinnamon and raisins only
-- The second loaf was cinnamon, raisins, and walnuts kneaded together into the dough
--The third loaf had the raisins kneaded into the dough, and walnuts swirled into the loaf along with brown sugar + (more) cinnamon. I've become a big fan of making my cinnamon sugar with brown sugar.

homemade on the left, Rudi's on the right

the verdict:
I gave away the cinnamon + raisin loaf. We toasted up slices of the other two loaves and Rudi's. The non-swirled bread was the closest to Rudi's, so we compared it in taste-test fashion. They were all seriously delicious pieces of toast. Rudi's is closer grained, and I thought it was chewier, more cinnamon-y, and a bit sweeter. But we thought the BBA bread tasted just as delicious as Rudi's! In fact, my husband said he preferred my bread, but I think he was just being sweet. When it comes to the swirled bread, though, even I agreed that it was better than Rudi's. It's hard to beat swirled cinnamon sugar!!

Peter Reinhart Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread

There are a lot of raisins in this bread, but the food processor chopped them into bits!

I've been wanting to make the Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread ever since I got Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book. I figured I'd bake it right after his regular Cinnamon Raisin Bread, and while it wouldn't be a true head-to-head comparison, it would be close.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe on the Google Books preview, here.

-This bread is made with the indirect method, spread over 2 days, with both a biga and a soaker (two different types of mixtures that sit, or ferment, for a day; one in the fridge and the other on the counter)

- The raisins are added to the soaker so they get nice and tender. The biggest problem with that for me is that I used my food processor to mix the dough, so the raisins got chopped up rather than remaining whole in the finished bread. If you use a stand mixer, or mix by hand, your raisins will stay whole.

- Also, the food processor stopped mixing slightly before the biga and soaker were fully incorporated, so there are light and dark steaks in the bread's crumb (as you can see in the picture, above).

- Again I added a bit of molasses.

- I split the dough into two loaves, and made both with a swirl of walnuts, brown sugar + cinnamon. I'm not sure why my swirl almost disappeared this time around, but it added some delicious flavor.

verdict:

This was a wonderful, hearty, chewy, cinnamon raisin bread. As with all of the breads I've baked from Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, the bread was not tough or dry at all - the pre-fermenting method brings out the flavor of the grain and keeps the bread nice and moist. It tasted a bit fuller and nuttier because of the whole grain. We thought it was perfect toasted and spread with butter, and, believe it or not we actually preferred this one to the other cinnamon raisin bread. It is a close grained bread and the whole grain flavor pairs beautifully with the spice and sweetness of the (chopped) raisins. The few extra steps are definitely worth the end result: cinnamon bread perfection!

[Edit to add: Sending this wonderful bread to Yeastspotting, a weekly roundup of all things yeasty]

Part Whole Grain Cinnamon Rolls {bba}

As I was getting ready to bake the next bread in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice (as part of the BBA Challenge) I wasn't as worried about being stuck in the seemingly-endless "C" section of the book as much as being mired in enriched sweet breads (with more to follow upcoming weeks). But it wouldn't be a challenge if all of the requirements were easy, right? Plus, even though I was tired of it, many people that I know would consider homemade sweet bread to be a treat so I knew that I'd be able to share my batch of rolls.

Now, on to planning how I was going to bake these.

The recipe has two variations: Cinnamon Rolls or Sticky Buns. None of us like the ultra stickyness, so cinnamon rolls it was. (Asked about sticky buns, J.D.E. said "ooh, pecans... no")

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I made my cinnamon rolls with about 1/3 whole grain (oat flour and white whole wheat), a bit of all purpose flour and 1/2 bread flour.

- I have a fairly fresh batch of fresh yeast in the fridge, so I used it for half of total yeast, and half was instant yeast.

- To keep the citrus accent very faint, I used a bit less than half of the lemon extract specified in the recipe.

- For the filling, I used brown sugar with cinnamon and a pinch of cardamom, mimicking the cinnamon filling from the cinnamon roll muffins that I'd recently made (and gave to my mother)

ready to proof

- I tried to make the "small" rolls, and cut 14 out of my rolled log. (Since my log was tapered a bit, my rolls were of varying sizes.) The rolls were huge by the time they came out of the oven! After making 8 recipes from this book, I've come to the conclusion that Peter Reinhart doesn't do small bread!

- Additionally, I didn't make the fondant glaze in the book (also has lemon in it) but just stirred together confectioner's sugar and milk then drizzled on a tiny bit of glaze over the finished rolls.

ready for the oven

the verdict:

These cinnamon rolls were a thousand times more to my liking than the ones I made with the brioche dough. The crumb wasn't as cakey; it was chewy, moist, yet tender. The brown sugar/ cinnamon was intense and a tiny bit of confectioner's sugar glaze was the icing on the cake so to speak.

[I'm sending these rolls to Yeastspotting!]

Quick Cinnamon Roll Yeast Muffins

If you are craving the taste of warm cinnamon rolls but not the effort involved in making and rolling a brioche-type dough, these delicious Quick Cinnamon Roll Muffins* are the perfect solution: they are made with yeast but no fuss, all the rising happens in the oven as it preheats, they come out beautifully puffy, and with or without an icing glaze they will reward you with yeast-y cinnamon-y goodness; my only tip is to sprinkle the cinnamon filling on top since it falls as the dough rises (mine all ended up on the bottom of the muffin cups and I had to scrape it off and stick it back onto the muffins) oh, and if you're using instant yeast, as I did, use 3 teaspoons.

As you may have guessed, I wrote the post above during One-Sentence-Blog-Post-Week, but never managed to get it posted, mostly because I couldn't figure out how to post the recipe source info in one sentence! Here's the scoop on the recipe:

*The original recipe was from Fleischman's Rapid Rise Yeast, and was for a cinnamon bun bread/coffee cake. It was baked in that form and posted by Baking Bites, and then baked as muffins by Joy the Baker. But I found the recipe from my blog friend Margot, of Effort To Deliciousness, who made muffins. Once I saw the muffins, I couldn't consider the bread version!

{edit to add that these muffins have been Yeastspotted!}