Almond Raisin Bread & Cinnamon Rolls

Last weekend, I was pretty busy with my baking. Besides the Pandan Cupcakes, I also baked Almond Raisin Bread &, my family's all time favourite, Cinnamon Rolls. I used the sweet dough recipe from Alex Goh's Magic Bread. 

The sweet dough recipe made about 1000g of dough. So I divided it into 2 parts & used 1 part for the Almond Raisin  Bread & the other for the Cinnamon Rolls. Both types of bread are similar in that they are both rolled buns, hence the shaping of the buns are pretty much the same. The difference is in the filling. Besides butter, sugar & cinnamon, the Almond Raisin Bread also has almond powder, egg & raisins in the filling. You may want to refer to my other Cinnamon Bun postings for the filling & cream cheese topping.

Almond Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

500g sweet bread dough

almond filling (see below)

100g raisins

sliced almond for topping 

Method:

1. Grease & line a 20cm round pan. Set aside.
2. Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick. At this point, since the dough was quite soft & challenging to handle, I placed the dough on a tray lined with grease paper & put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. This facilitates the rolling & cutting of the dough.
3. Place the dough onto a working table & roll it out into a 35 x 23 cm rectangular shape.
4. Spread almond filling onto the rolled out dough & then sprinkle the raisins.
5. Roll up the dough like a Swill roll.
6. Cut  the dough into 10 pieces & arrange in the baking pan. (I used a 7 x 10 inch pan, so I cut the dough into 8 pieces.)
7. Leave pan in a warm place for about 45 minutes to proof.
8. Egg wash the top & sprinkle some sliced almond.
9. Bake in a preheated oven (180 deg C) on the lower rack for about 25-30 minutes.
10. Once cooked, remove bread from pan.

Almond filling:

50g butter

50g sugar

60g egg

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

100g ground almond

         Mix sugar & butter until well blended. Add in egg & mix until well combined. Add in ground almond& cinnamon powder & mix well. Set aside.

Cinnamon Rolls

Basic Sweet Bread Dough
[Makes about 1000g of sweet bread dough]

Gelatinised dough:
100g bread flour
70g boiling water
Add the boiling water into the flour. Mix until well blended to form a dough. Cover and set aside to cool. Store the dough in refrigerator for at least 12 hours.

Bread dough:
300g bread flour
100g plain flour
80g sugar
20g milk powder
9g instant yeast

175g cold water
60g cold egg (1 large egg)
all of the above gelatinised dough

60g butter (diced)

6g salt (about 1 tsp)

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, combine bread & plain flour, milk powder, baking powder, sugar & instant yeast & mix well. 
2. Add in egg & cold water & mix until a rough dough is formed. Add in gelatinised dough & mix until well blended.
3. Add in butter & continue mixing well. 
4. Finally, add in salt & continue mixing to form a smooth & elastic dough. Check for membrane.
5. Remove from bowl & mould into a smooth round dough. Place the dough into a greased bowl, and cover. Set in a warm place to rise until double. Dough is ready if you touch it and the indention remains.
6. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface & divide the dough into 2 parts. Mould each part into a smooth round dough & leave to rest for 10 minutes. The dough is ready to be formed into the cinnamon rolls & almond raisin bread.

Recipe by Alex Goh of Magic Bread, with some modifications to the method.