03.01: Cinnamon Bread
HausLab is more than chemistry
One of the major problems with settling on chemistry as a career path is that all of my other interests have to take the backseat. Well, HausLab was designed to combat that problem. Who says I have to limit my explorations of the world around me to the chemical level?
This video has plenty to do with chemistry. It also has plenty to do with experimentation. I wouldn’t be the first YouTube chemistry channel to make videos about edible materials. I would actually be in very good company! I had intended to put this video up on the blog only for two main reasons. First, I want to get myself better-established before I start changing up the format. Second, I didn’t think I was ready to put my face in the public domain. But I did want to experiment with live taping. (It’s hard!) But then, I decided to embrace my dreams and go for it!
Why make cinnamon bread be the first video outside of straight chemistry? Well, it’s tradition for one thing. For as long as I can remember, my mom has baked cinnamon bread every year for the holidays. She moved to Florida in 2009, but still made the cinnamon bread and either shipped it here or brought it with when she came up for Christmas. This year, she’s not making the trip. Shipped cinnamon bread doesn’t taste as good because it’s already a few days old. So I decided I’m making the bread this year.
I’ve never made a loaf of bread in my life, and here I am taking over a family tradition with loads of expectations behind it. No pressure.
For the first attempt, this batch turned out pretty good. There are three things I need to change when I go into production.
1. Baking time. The recipe calls for 40-45 minutes, and Mom said that if it sounds “hollow” when you tap on it, it’s done. I baked them about 42 minutes, and they did sound hollow with some browning on the top. It was a little doughy though, so it should have been in at least 45 minutes. I later learned that it’s more like 45-60 minutes and the recipe isn’t quite right.
2. Rolling method. The more cinnamon and less bread between the cinnamon swirls, the better the cinnamon bread! I didn’t roll the bread thin enough, and so there were less swirls and thicker layers of bread. The easy fix is simply to roll the bread out thinner and roll it a few more times.
3. Cinnamon content. I made the amount of cinnamon-sugar filling called for in the recipe. That’s wrong. Successful cinnamon bread uses way more cinnamon than called for in the recipe! So for production mode, I’m going to make four batches of bread, and about ten batches of filling!
Everyone in the family loves this bread, and it has come to define Christmas. Not only does my version have to meet expectations, it has to exceed them. My mom is getting close to retirement age, so it seems like it’s my turn to carry the torch for a while.
Merry Christmas to all!
–Jason
This video and post are dedicated to the memory of Christine Lindsay (June 1, 1951 — December 20, 1988)
