Classic Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Can you smell it? That cinnamon bread aroma fills the whole house and my senses — I couldn't keep this recipe to myself! It's a delightful bread! This cinnamon and raisin bread is very easy to make. It requires little kneading and I call it bread... although it would be just as fair to call it cake, since it's somewhere between the two (it's a bread that needs rising, but you won't have to do a long knead).

Bread or not, with or without raisins, what's also delightful is baking it the way breads are meant to be baked — in an iron loaf pan! The truth is that this Lodge pan has been a great find. It’s giving me as much joy as muscle! (yes, we must admit it’s a bit heavy...). Thanks to its cast iron material, it gets very hot (as bread requires), and thanks to that, in this mold you get a fabulous crust and a fantastic bake on your dough! I hope you try this recipe, and if you also try the mold, I’d love to know what you think of it.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 240 ml of warm milk
• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 1 cup of raisins (use a coffee-with-milk cup full of raisins)
• 75 g of unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 560 g of wheat flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 50 g of sugar
• 2½ tsp active dry yeast

For the filling:

• 100 g of sugar
• 100 g of brown sugar
• 3 generous tbsp ground cinnamon
• 3 tbsp melted butter (you'll use them separately)

Lodge iron loaf pan

Preparation:

1. In a glass, add one or two fingers of the warm milk and add the yeast. Mix and let rest for a few minutes.
2. Meanwhile, optionally preheat the oven top and bottom heat to 40 ºC (this will be a perfect warm place to let the dough rise later).
3. In a bowl, sift the flour, salt and sugar.
4. In the KitchenAid bowl with the dough hook attached, add the yeast-and-milk mixture, and also add the eggs, the remaining milk and the raisins. Turn the mixer on to medium-high speed for 2 minutes to start whisking the eggs.
5. Reduce to medium speed and add the butter. Then add the flour gradually (1/2 cup at a time) until it's all fully incorporated.
6. Continue kneading for 5–7 minutes. The dough should be smooth and come away easily from the sides of the bowl.
7. For the oven (we only wanted it warm to let the dough rise).
8. Remove the dough from the KitchenAid and place it in a bowl lightly greased with oil, covering it with plastic wrap (it's important that it's well sealed so the dough doesn't dry out). Let it rise in a warm place (the oven, if you turned it on for that purpose), until it has doubled in size, between 1 and 2 hours.
9. Deflate the dough by pressing it with your knuckles and transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into two parts. Roll each half out to a rectangle approximately 25 x 50 cm.
10. Brush each dough rectangle with 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Mix the dry filling ingredients (the white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon) and spread them evenly over the dough rectangles, leaving about a 1 cm border on each side unsweetened.
11. You will have 2 rolls, and you should bake them in two batches or at once if you have two loaf pans. Lightly grease the Lodge iron loaf pan (if you like, you can also line it with parchment paper).
12. Starting from the short side of the rectangle, roll each rectangle of dough into a cylinder or log, with the "seam" facing down.
13. Place the dough cylinder in the prepared loaf pan and cover it with plastic wrap for 30 minutes to rest (if you have 2 loaf pans, prepare the other pan now and let the second cylinder rest inside that one too; otherwise, leave it on a tray well covered with plastic wrap or a damp cotton cloth).
14. While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 180°C.
15. Brush the loaf in the pan with a little melted butter and bake for 35–40 minutes.
16. Remove from the oven and let cool 10 minutes before unmolding onto a cooling rack.
17. If you have the second roll to bake, place it in the pan carefully, let it rest 10 minutes after handling, brush it with butter and bake.
18. Slice, serve and enjoy this delicious bread (or rather, these breads!).