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    Home » Recipes » Breads » Yeast Breads

    Cinnamon Swirl Brioche

    Published by Melissa on April 9, 2012 | Updated June 10, 2022 | 73 Comments

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    Cinnamon-Swirl-Brioche-Barbara-Bakes

    An easy-to-make rich, buttery brioche with a flaky crust and a tender, light and fluffy crumb. It’s braided to create beautiful, delicious, sweet cinnamon swirls. 

    My Secret Recipe Club blog this month is the Cooking Rookie aka The Cook Book of Trial and Error. Elana’s a bread lover and has 26 bread recipes on her blog. Since I’m a bread lover too, baking a bread recipe from her delicious site was an easy choice.

    Cinnamon-Swirl-Brioche-Slice-Barbara-Bakes

    The hard part was narrowing it down to just one recipe. I decided to use her rating system to decide, and she gave a five star rate to the brioche bread she made from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

    The Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day cookbook is one I use often, but I have to admit we love the artisan bread so much that I haven’t tried many of the other recipes. So after reading Elana’s rave review, I decided it was high time to try the brioche recipe.

    Cinnamon-Swirl-Brioche-Collage-Barbara-Bakes

    Cook’s Illustrated recently developed a Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe that I’ve been wanting to try. So I decided to combine the easy brioche dough recipe and use the filling and braiding technique from Cook’s Illustrated.

    The Cook’s recipe uses a dry filling made with powdered sugar that is spritzed with water after it’s sprinkled on the dough. This prevents the filling from leaking out and the huge gaps that you’ll often see in Cinnamon Bread. I was so impressed with the results. I loved the beautiful swirls and braided top.

    Cinnamon-Swirl-Brioche-French-Toast-Barbara-Bakes

    Elana made French Toast with her brioche and I couldn’t resist making French Toast with mine. To the eggs and half and half I added a little brown sugar and cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla.  It was the best French Toast I have ever had.

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    4.41 from 10 votes

    Cinnamon Swirl Brioche

    Cook Time45 mins
    Total Time45 mins
    Course: Yeast Breads
    Keyword: baking, food, recipe
    Servings: 3 large loaves
    Author: Barbara Schieving
    Prevent your screen from going to sleep

    Ingredients

    Brioche dough

    • 1 ½ cups lukewarm water
    • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
    • 1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt
    • 8 large eggs lightly beaten
    • ½ cup honey
    • 1 ½ cups 3 sticks unsalted butter, melted
    • 7 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour I only used 6 ½ cups
    • Refrigerate in a lidded not airtight container overnight and use over the next 5 days.

    Filling

    • 1 cup confectioners sugar
    • 3 tablespoons cinnamon
    • ½ teaspoon salt

    Instructions

    • Mix the water, yeast, salt, eggs, honey and melted butter in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.
    • Mix in the flour, using a spoon until all of the flour is incorporated.
    • Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours until the dough rises and collapses.
    • Refrigerate in a lidded (not airtight) container overnight and use over the next 5 days.
    • Assembling the Cinnamon Swirl Brioche
    • Grease three 9 x 4 inch loaf pans.* Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and divide dough in three equal pieces. On a well floured board, pat each piece into a 7 by 18 inch rectangle. (If necessary, use a bench scraper to loosen dough and add more flour underneath the dough so it doesn't stick.)
    • Use a spray bottle, lightly spray the top of the dough with water. Sprinkle a third of the filling mixture over the dough leaving a ¼ inch border on the sides and a ¾ inch border on top and bottom. Spray filling lightly with water so the filling is speckled with water.
    • Starting on the short side, roll the dough up into a cylinder and seal seam. Let it rest for 10 minutes.
    • Use your bench scraper to cut the loaf in half lengthwise; turn halves so cut sides are facing up. Gently stretch each half into a 14 inch length. Pinch the two ends of the dough together and braid dough by laying the left piece over the right keeping the cut side up, until pieces of dough are tightly twisted. Pinch ends together.
    • Transfer loaf, cut side up, to prepared loaf pan. Repeat with remaining dough.
    • Cover pans loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size. Top of the loaves should rise about 1 inch over the lip of the pan. (Mine took 3 hours, but the Cook's recipe says 1 ½ hours.)
    • Preheat oven to 350º. Bake approximately 25 minutes until the crust is golden brown. Reduce oven temperature to 325º, tent loaves with foil and continue baking until internal temperature registers 200º, 15 to 25 minutes longer. (I just got a new wireless thermometer - thanks Tiff! - and it took my bread exactly 15 minutes longer.)
    • Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Remove loaves from pans and cool completely on a wire rack before slicing, about 2 hours.

    Notes

    *You can bake all three loaves at once, leave the dough in the fridge for up to five days, or freeze the dough.
    adapted from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day and Cook's Illustrated

    Visit the Secret Recipe Club for information on how to join in the fun.


    ‘); // ]]>

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    About Melissa & Barbara

    As of June 2022 Melissa Griffiths now is the one adding recipes. So think of it as Barbara Bakes, and Melissa too! Melissa and Barbara have been blogging friends for over 10 years and when Barbara was ready to retire and spend more time with her family, Melissa took over the site. Read more...

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      Recipe Rating




    1. Aggie

      April 11, 2012 at 3:40 pm

      Oh Barbara I’m a sucker for cinnamon swirl bread. Your bread turned out beautiful!! Would love a warm slice with butter…mmmm

      Reply
    2. Anne

      April 11, 2012 at 9:08 am

      I saw this braiding method on Pinterest and tried it with wheat bread. Yum! Yours is beautiful!

      Reply
    3. Asmita

      April 11, 2012 at 4:32 am

      Your brioche bread looks fantastic!

      Reply
    4. Chung-Ah | Damn Delicious

      April 10, 2012 at 11:41 pm

      Brioche is definitely one of my favorite breads, and I’m loving this cinnamon swirl in there. Great idea on the french toast – I’m sure they were to die for!

      Reply
    5. Tracey

      April 10, 2012 at 6:38 pm

      Oooh, I just made that cinnamon swirl bread from CI, it is fantastic! Your bread looks perfect! I really need to pull out my copy of Artisan Breads more often, it’s full of recipes I bookmarked.

      Reply
    6. Amy

      April 10, 2012 at 4:49 pm

      This is absolutely beautiful. Makes me want to run to the kitchen an bake up a loaf. 🙂 Maybe I will do that tomorrow morning.

      Reply
    7. Kathy

      April 10, 2012 at 4:44 pm

      Yummy… maybe even I could pull this off. I think I need my super, duper helper though… it would be more fun!!!

      Reply
    8. Myrna

      April 10, 2012 at 1:48 pm

      This type of brioche is truly delicious, thanks for sharing with us a kind of recipe…:)

      Reply
    9. zazacook

      April 10, 2012 at 12:50 pm

      What a beautiful Brioche!!!!!! Love the French toast. Yours are so perfect and look so scrumptious 🙂

      Reply
    10. Bonnie

      April 10, 2012 at 12:49 pm

      This looks wonderful. I’ve made the brioche from abin five but I have been wanting to try that braid for awhile. Glad to know you like this filling. I’ll be trying this recipe next. Thanks for the information and inspiration.

      Reply
    11. Donna

      April 10, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      This looks amazing, Barbara – I have never made brioche, but this makes me want to ry!

      Reply
    12. Margaret

      April 10, 2012 at 8:46 am

      That bread is absolutely GORGEOUS!!! Have to try this one.

      Reply
    13. Leanne

      April 10, 2012 at 6:19 am

      Very interesting brioche, I’m so excited to taste the deliciousness of this recipe… Yummy!

      Reply
    14. Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella

      April 10, 2012 at 5:27 am

      Mum you got the most perfect swirls on your loaf! It’s a work of swirly art! 😀 xxx

      Reply
    15. Anuja

      April 10, 2012 at 12:58 am

      Love the swirls and braids. Beautiful bread.

      Reply
    16. baker-in-disguise

      April 09, 2012 at 10:52 pm

      reading this after my breakfast… yet that french toast is calling out to me ..the braid really looks amazing!!

      Reply
    17. Katrina

      April 09, 2012 at 9:57 pm

      Mmm, that does look good and definitely seems perfect for French toast! Great pick.

      Reply
    18. Carol

      April 09, 2012 at 8:59 pm

      OHHHHHHHH MY……………does that ever look heavenly. And here I came home with 2 dozen FRESH eggs from our daughter’s friend who has chickens-and I had no idea what to do with them.

      BOY I hope I can carve some time out this week to make this bread. We’re finally getting some rainy weather coming in for a few days-the perfect weather to bake…especially bread.

      Thanks SO much Barbara………what a fantastic post-that is one beautiful bread.

      Carol

      Reply
    19. Claire @ Claire K Creations

      April 09, 2012 at 8:53 pm

      Ooh wow this looks delicious. I might have to whip up a batch this weekend. I have a friend visiting and she would love this!

      Reply
    20. Cyndy

      April 09, 2012 at 8:45 pm

      I love Brioche. The swirls are beautiful. I bet that french toast was awesome

      Thanks!

      Reply
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