This weekend Sean declared that it had been too long since he worked with bread dough and he wanted to make cinnamon raisin bread, and so this recipe was born :D. I crafted the recipe, but he did a lot of the work while I was taking care of other things. It turned out remarkably well, and we like it a lot. Because we just made it this weekend we haven’t tried it as toast or french toast yet, but I suspect it would be very good used either way. I even stumbled across a cinnamon-raisin bread pudding recipe when I was looking around the internet for ideas on proportions (normal cinnamon-raisin bread has TONS of sugar in it, hence why I created this recipe instead of using one of the many other recipes out there). I don’t like bread pudding, but if you do I bet this would be good in it!

Without further ado, natural sugar Cinnamon-Raisin Bread!

Cinnamon-Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk (I used 2%)
• 8 TBS butter, divided (6 for the dough, 2 for brushing later)
• 3 tsp active dry yeast
• 2 eggs
• 2 TBS Baking Stevia
• 3 3/4 – 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup Truvia
• 2 tsp molasses
• 2 TBS ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup brandy (or if you don’t want to use alcohol, apple juice)
• 1/4 cup hot water
• egg yolk and 1 TBS milk for baking glaze, if desired

Directions:

1. Gently scald (warm until the edges just bubble) the milk and 6 TBS butter in a small sauce pan. Stir well and allow to cool until it feels warm when you stick your finger in, but not hot. At that point, add the yeast and mix. Let stand about 10 minutes or until the yeast starts foaming up.

2. While the yeast is activating, combine the raisins, brandy, and water in a small dish and set aside to soak. I use a very small ramekin so that the raisins are completely covered by the liquid.

3.Combine the flour, salt, and Baking Stevia in a medium bowl. Mix well to combine.

4. In the bowl of a mixer (or by hand, if you’d rather) beat the two eggs together until combined. Add the activated yeast mixture and stir to combine. Add the flour mixture and mix until you can’t any more, then knead with the dough hook or by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic. It will be a little bit sticky from the milk and stevia, but it should be quite workable and not just glue itself to your fingers. Add more flour to achieve this, if necessary.

5. Warm a glass mixing bowl and oil it. Put the kneaded dough in and turn it over so it’s oiled on all sides. Cover loosely with saran wrap and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled. This was about an hour in my 70 degree F house.

6. Once doubled, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out until it is as wide as the bread pan you want to use and 18 to 24 inches long, a nice tidy rectangle. Grease the bread pan with a little of the remaining 2 TBS of melted butter, then brush the top of your dough rectangle with the rest of it.

7. Drain the raisins and set aside. Put the Truvia and molasses together in a small bowl and mash it together with a fork until well-combined. This may take a bit. Your goal is not to crush the Truvia but rather to get it to soak up the molasses and look pretty evenly brown. Add the cinnamon to this mixture and stir to combine.

8. Sprinkle the Truvia-cinnamon mixture evenly over your buttered dough. Do the same for the raisins.

9. Roll the dough from the short end, making a log of dough with the filling wrapped in a swirl inside. Pinch the dough seam closed gently and put the log in the buttered bread pan. Set aside to rise again for about 45 minutes, until nicely domed up in the pan.

10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the egg yolk and 1 TBS milk and brush gently over the top of the loaf, if desired. This will give you that shiny golden top. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the loaf is a nice dark golden brown (even a bit darker than in the picture is ideal). Let cool, slice, and enjoy!