From Scratch to Scrumptious

What is the Tangzhong Method?

In the Tangzhong Method, flour and water are cooked in a pot until they form a thick roux before being mixed into bread dough. It really makes a difference in how soft your bread will be! (Watch for a tangzhong sandwich bread recipe in the future.)

Cinnamon Swirl Bread Secret Ingredient

This cinnamon swirl bread has an unexpected healthy secret ingredient that keeps it soft and fresh longer than the usual loaf of bread: cooked oatmeal. You heard me right. Oatmeal. Cooked.

Why it works: Cooked oatmeal acts like the tangzhong flour-water roux. It has water in it that can’t be baked out in the oven. It locks the moisture away, keeping this bread soft for days.

Does this cinnamon swirl bread taste like oatmeal? Can you feel the oats when you eat it? No and no! My kids do not like oatmeal, but it’s a healthy breakfast, (I can’t make muffins every day!) so sometimes we have oatmeal. I make 6 servings for 6 people, but we always have leftovers! I was sick of throwing away good, healthy food!

Now I happily take the healthy breakfast leftovers and sneak them into a delicious loaf of bread that my kids see as a special treat! Little do they know that they’re eating every bit of the oatmeal they didn’t want to eat yesterday!

Did you ever think you could make a delicious loaf of cinnamon swirl bread from scratch using oatmeal? I’m willing to bet it will become a favorite recipe!

This bread starts with a sweet dough (complete with secret ingredient) that has the classic steps of first rise, shaping and second rise in the pan before baking. The secret to the most cinnamon swirl in every slice of bread is the way the bread is rolled out and folded while shaping the loaf. You can find a step-by-step tutorial, complete with pictures below!

Yeast: This recipe uses active-dry yeast and needs to be proofed before being added to the dough.

Warm water: Be sure to keep your water between 95-115°F. Water too cool will slow the rising time. Water too hot will kill the yeast.

Brown sugar: Extra sweetness boosts the yeast’s productivity!

Melted butter or oil: Either works fine in this recipe. I don’t notice too much of a flavor difference since the main flavor in this recipe comes from the cinnamon-sugar swirl. I usually opt for vegetable oil since I have tons of it, and it’s less expensive than butter.

Salt: Every loaf of bread needs salt for flavor. Never add the salt directly to the proofed yeast. This would kill the yeast. Mix it into the oatmeal to protect your yeast.

Cooked oatmeal: This key ingredient can be made with old fashioned oats or quick oats. It can be as thin or thick as you usually make it.

The temperature of the cooked oatmeal needs to be the same as the water: 95-115°F. This will be warm enough keep the yeast active but not so hot that it will kill your yeast.

Don’t have enough leftover oatmeal? For each 1 cup that you need, boil 1 cup water and mix in 1/2 cups of oats. Simmer and cook over medium heat 1 minute for quick oats or 5 minutes for old-fashioned oats. Remove from heat and allow to cool before using.

Can you use flavored oatmeal? Yes. I’ve made a loaf of bread with strawberry-flavored oatmeal and barely noticed the strawberry flavor in the baked bread. I love using leftover brown sugar-cinnamon-flavored oatmeal for obvious reasons!

Rolled oats, dry: Additional oats, uncooked, give this bread an extra healthy kick! These can be quick or old-fashioned. I prefer old-fashioned because they tend to absorb more water than the quick version.

Flour: All-purpose flour is used as needed to make a smooth elastic dough. The recipe calls for 5 cups, but I have needed to add up to a cup extra to make the dough soft and elastic.

Bread flour can easily be substituted for all-purpose flour.

Butter for cinnamon swirl: The butter blends with the cinnamon sugar to make the most delicious swirl. I do not recommend swapping butter for oil or milk. Butter gives this swirl the best flavor.

Brown sugar for cinnamon swirl: A more intense flavor than granulated sugar for the cinnamon swirl. Pack it into the measuring cups to get the proper amount.

Cinnamon: Ground cinnamon for the cinnamon swirl.

Everyone knows that the best part of the cinnamon swirl bread is the cinnamon swirl! Let’s learn how to get more swirl into each slice!

First, start by rolling the dough thin to form a rectangle measuring about 20″ by 10″. A thin layer of dough decreases the amount of bread between each swirl.

Now the first layer of butter is brushed over the top and cinnamon-sugar is sprinkled over the butter. You’ll use a little more than half of the butter and cinnamon-sugar mixture for this first step.

Be sure to leave a 1″ border around the butter or the bread won’t seal easily. The filling will spill right out.

Next, fold over one of the short sides to about the middle.

Fold over the other short side, overlapping slightly. Press gently to seal. You’ll want this seam to be in the middle instead of the side. If a side-seam comes open, all of the filling will pour out of the bread and into the pan. A middle seam is reinforced by the outer layers of bread.

Now you will add the second layer of delicious butter-cinnamon-sugar swirl! This is the secret! Two swirls!

Remember to leave 1″ border around 3 sides. Whichever side is the center of your loaf can have butter and cinnamon-sugar all the way to the edge. In fact, I recommend it!

You can see in the picture above that I plan to roll starting from the bottom. I have filling all the way to that edge.

Roll up the dough and gently pinch the last edge to seal. Then, very gently pinch the edges to seal. The dough will be thin here and requires extra care so that you don’t pinch right through it.

If you do pinch through, you can try to patch it up or pinch it shut. If you can’t repair the hole, you will lose some of the filling, but not all of it. All is not lost! You will still have delicious bread!

Place the shaped loaf into a greased 9×5″ bread pan, seam side down. Cover with a tea towel, and put your bread somewhere warm to rise, about 30 minutes. I like to put mine on top of the oven while it preheats.

Remove the bread from the pan immediately after baking. Be careful, though! If any of the filling has bubbled out of the bread, it will be gooey, runny and very hot!

Don’t be discouraged if you lose some filling to the inside of your pan. It has happened plenty to me! You’ll still have lots of swirl in your bread!

If you leave the bread in the pan too long, the spilled filling will cool and solidify into a hard-candy type substance. Then you have hard candy between your loaf of bread and the pan. It will be nearly impossible to separate them without losing a chunk of the bread.

Why does the spilled filling solidify while the filling in the bread stays nice and soft? The spilled filling is in direct contact with the bread pan where it is the hottest. This increases the heat of the sugar mixture to the “hard-crack” temperature (300°F), where sugar turns into hard candy. Baked bread only reaches a final internal temperature of 190-200°, so your filling will not turn into a butterscotch candy.