Vanilla Cinnamon Bread
from The New Best of Better Baking by Marcy Goldman

Dough
1 ½ cups warm water
2 ½ tsp instant yeast
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
½ cup sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ tsp salt (vanilla salt if you have it)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp non-fat dry milk
¼ cup instant potato flakes (1)
3 ½ to 4 ½ cups bread flour (2) (3)

Filling
Milk
2 tbsp cinnamon
¼ cup sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it)

Two 8- x 4- inch bread pans

Add yeast to water and let sit for a few minutes. Stir in butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, dry milk, and potato flakes / flour. Add 3 ½ cups of bread flour and knead for 8 to 10 minutes, adding more flour as needed to form a soft dough. (As noted, I use potato flour, and it is a really sticky dough that never cleanly pulls away from the sides of the bowl.)

Let dough rise 30 to 45 minutes, or until about doubled.

Mix together cinnamon and sugar.

Roll out dough into a 12 by 10 rectangle. Brush dough with milk. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Roll up into a log and cut in half to make 2 loaves and place in pans. (I actually cut in half before rolling, and manipulate the roll, pinching in the ends, so that the cinnamon sugar bits are sealed inside. This makes a finished loaf that is a bit more like poticza and less like normal cinnamon bread, but makes the pans MUCH easier to clean. And I like the more random cinnamon swirld.)

Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes, or until dough rises just above the edge of the pan.

Preheat oven to 350. I generally preheat for at least 30 minutes, or try to bake something else before the bread so the oven is definitely at temp, but then I keep a baking stone in the bottom of my oven.

Bake 35-45 minutes or until loaves are brown. Cool in pans for 15 minutes then remove from pan.

(1) I only have potato flour, and I’ve dropped it to 2 tbsp and it’s still a very sticky.
(2) 1 cup of flour = 4.5 oz for her recipes
(3) I’ve used 1 cup of whole wheat flour and added 1 tsp gluten