Saturday, June 6, 2009

Chocolate Cinnamon Bread.....Can you Just Smell the Aroma?

I have been away from blogging for 2 days attending to the busy-ness of life! Whew. It is nice to have the weekend appear. And weekends for me usually mean getting down to serious fun of cooking and baking. (Ahhhh.........hence the name Weekend Cook!)

So this weekend, I am making another "coffee and..." recipe. Two of our kids are home with their families for the weekend so it's a houseful and someone is always looking for a snack!

This is really good recipe for coffee. This recipe is very similar to the Chocolate Cinnamon Bread you can buy by the slice at Starbucks. And what can be better than chocolate and cinnamon? The recipe makes 2 loaves. This means you can make one for yourself and give one away, or make one for yourself and freeze the other loaf for when you need a chocolate fix (!!) or unexpected company. Serve with a steaming good cup of joe or a glass of cold milk. If you want to make this extra-chocolate-y, toss in a cup of mini-chocolate chips to the batter. And if you want to try something REALLY decadent, put a slice of this in the toaster oven for a couple of minutes and make some cinnamon butter to go on top. I have to stop now because just writing about this is making me want some, and if I don't get to work, it isn't going to get made! I wonder if this would make good French Toast? How about using some in bread pudding? Stop...stop the insanity!!!

Chocolate Cinnamon Bread
Recipe Adapted from Starbucks Coffee Company
Ingredients
Batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups Dutch cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk, chilled
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1½ cups unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs

Topping:
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons Turbinado sugar
½ teaspoon Dutch cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans, line with parchment paper, then lightly grease again.
2. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and cinnamon together. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, combine buttermilk, water, and vanilla. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar; cream together until mixture appears light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each egg is thoroughly mixed. Alternately add some of the sifted flour mixture, and the buttermilk mixture to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, and stirring just until blended.
5. Pour batter into the loaf pans, dividing the batter evenly between the 2 pans. Set aside. Topping:
6. In a small bowl, combine granulated sugar, Turbinado sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Sprinkle evenly over the batter.
7. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove pans from oven and let cool about 15 minutes.
Grabbing the top edges of the parchment paper, lift bread from loaf pans and place on wire racks to finish cooling.
Remove parchment paper and discard. Makes 2 loaves

7 comments:

  1. This looks delicious! I love cinnamon and chocolate together. I also love the buttermilk in your recipe. I just recently starting using it in my recipes and it really makes a difference. I use it in my pancake batter now and they come out so light and fluffy!

    I hope you have a relaxing weekend! :0)

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  2. Oh my Linda...I will have to try this one! My two favs...chocolate and cinnamon! However, I guess I'm not much of a real cook. I don't know what Turbinado sugar is. Can you buy it at the grocery store? Have a great weekend...Debbie

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  3. Oh yes..."sugar in the raw"...I've seen that in the store! I've copied your recipe and I'm going to make it! Thanks, Linda!...Debbie

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  4. Linda! This looks so darned good and tempting that I wanted to enlarge the picture and lick the screen. My word, this looks and sounds so delicious.

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  5. I can immagine the nice smell of this bread and it looks fantastic!

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  6. This is a definite try recipe! How nice it must be to have family home! How busy you must be too! LOL

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  7. Sounds like a perfect treat for anytime of day.

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