Hobbes the traveller & foodie: March 2020

It's Corona lock-down, and we felt the need for something to raise our spirits. From our previous experience, we know that baking bread is therapeutic. It never fails to cheer us up, and it didn't disappoint this time either.

Breads are normally Sanju's domain, but this time I was keen on trying out this one. My friend Cherry motivated me into baking during the lockdown, and sweet cinnamon bread always brings a cheer. We don't claim the recipe to be ours but it's simple and the result is fab.

Ingredients

Flour (maida) : 310 g (plus some for dusting the surface)

Milk:150 ml + 1 tbsp (for egg wash)

Eggs: 2 eggs (one for the bread and one for egg wash for glazing the bread prior to baking)

Yeast:1 tsp

Sugar : 50 g

Butter : 50 g

Salt: 1 tsp

Oil: approx 1 tsp for lining bowl / baking tray

Brown sugar: Approx 2-3 tbsp or as per requirement

Cinnamon powder: Approx 1 1/2 tbsp or as per requirement

Ingredients

Method:

Preparing the dough:

Add luke warm milk and one egg into a bowl and whisk it in.

Add sugar, yeast and salt and mix them in. (we used crystallized sugar and it worked out fine)

Add butter (soft/melted). We used regular pasteurized Amul butter. Mix it in.

Add the flour (maida) and fold it in. Once they have mixed in, prepare your kneading platform by dusting it with flour and then take out the dough onto the kneading platform.

In case the dough is too hard, add some more milk/water. If its too wet add some more flour.

Knead the dough (approx 8 min) till its soft, supple and elastic. It should stretch while you knead it. The more you knead it, the better your bread will turn out.

Sludge like mixture

Take out for kneading

Ready for first proofing

First Proofing:

Oil a bowl and put the dough into it, lightly oil the outer surface and cover it with a cling wrap. Keep aside in a warm dry place for around 2-3 hours or till it doubles in size.

Dough doubles in size after 1st proofing

Shaping and Second proofing:

Once the dough has risen for about 3 hours (doubles in size), take it out on the platform and punch out the air. Flatten it out till about 10 inches in diameter (about an inch thick). Cut it into four quarters.

Make small balls of the dough, put them under the cling wrap. Dust the working area with flour and take out one dough ball and roll it out circle (roti/pizza) of about 10 inches in dia.

Place this on a tray / butter paper sheet. (remember, what you place it on will be on what you will be baking the bread. We used butter paper sheets and later picked it up and put it on the baking tray)

Spread cinnamon powder and brown sugar over the rolled out dough. I wont give quantities of sugar/cinnamon as its up to taste. We used both liberally.

Take another ball of dough, roll it out into a circle of similar diameter. Place it on top of the previous rolled out dough. Add the sugar and cinnamon combo again. Repeat till the last ball of dough. No sugar & cinnamon on top of the last one. So at the end of this process you will have four circles of dough with sugar+cinnamon sandwich.

Four portions

Four balls of the dough

Cinnamon powder + brown sugar layer

Use a glass (or any circular utensil) to make an indentation in the center of the dough sandwich (just a depression, dont go all the way down). This will be your cue for the next step.

Use a big sharp knife to make cuts, from the circular indentation till the edge, at 12 O'clock, 3 O'clock, 6 O'clock and 9 O'clock positions. Cut all the way down.