Cinnamon Bread

I tried this recipe for the first time yesterday and I adore it for the simplicity.  Five minutes to put together, one hour in the oven and it’s ready to go!

Here’s the cast of characters for our recipe.  Notice how out of focus the top and bottom ingredients are in this photo?  I was hungry, y’all; impatient to get started and I just clicked away so I could start mixing ingredients together.

So we start by preheating our oven to 350 degrees and creaming together the 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter and 1 egg in a large bowl.

No fancy Kitchen Aid mixer over here, just a simple handheld mixer.

If my husband is reading this, I’d like to make note that a classic red Kitchen Aid mixer would look incredible in our kitchen sometime in the future.  And there’s still my birthday and our anniversary to look forward to this year.  And also our daughter’s birthday, the ultimate gift I’ve given him.  I realize I’ve set the bar pretty high with that one.  I gave life so he could give me a Kitchen Aid… right?

Where was I?

Oh right, we just finished creaming the first of the ingredients together.  Now we’re going to add in 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 cup buttermilk.  If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can always pour just under 1 cup of milk into a measuring cup and add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to it.  Let it set for about five minutes to thicken up and voila – buttermilk!  I learned that trick from The Pioneer Woman.  Ree Drummond is kind of my spirit animal.

Once we’ve mixed in those ingredients, we can pour just under half the batter into our greased loaf pan.  I used a 5×9.  In a separate bowl, we’re going to mix together 1/3 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Pour about 3/4 of your cinnamon sugar mix over the half batter.  Pour remainder of batter in the pan and the last bit of cinnamon sugar goes on top.  Give it a good swirl!

Now pop the pan in the oven for 50 minutes.  Try a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean, our bread is finished baking!  If there’s still batter on the toothpick, place the pan back in the oven an additional ten minutes.

Once it’s finished baking, you’re going to want to try a piece.  I waited almost 30 minutes to remove the loaf from the pan.  Once you taste how delicious this bread is, you’re going to realize how much self-control that really requires.

Here’s the recipe:

Batter

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

Cinnamon/Sugar Mixture

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

• Cream together butter, 1 cup of sugar, and eggs.
• Add milk, flour, and baking soda.
• Put just under half the batter into a greased 5×9 loaf pan.
• Mix in separate bowl the cinnamon sugar.
• Add remaining batter to pan and top with remaining cinnamon sugar.  Give it a good swirl to pretty it up.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from the center.
• Cool for 20-30 minutes before removing from pan.