Cinammon Loaf - enough said

Well, for a moment there, I was getting all introspective, so it’s good to be back at the shallow end of life again, baking lovely things.

My plan to make the Cinammon Loaf from Baked in America last weekend was scuppered by the fact that we were overrun with fair-trade chocolate cake from the cake competition. Fortunately, we’ve pretty much finished the choc sponge (Pink’s effort) and I put what was left of Blue’s Rocky Road in the freezer, in lunchbox sized pre-wrapped portions (yes yes, I know, it’s akin to Nigella freezing wine left over from dinner parties – I always used to think – “What left over wine? What kind of dinner parties does she throw?” – and now here I am freezing chocolate cake. What’s the world coming to – but that’s probably for another blog.)

Back to the loaf. I am particularly fond of cinnamon things. My lovely sister in law even ventured to suggest recently that Nigella's cinammon buns were becoming my ‘signature’ dish. As the Baked in America guys write “...there is nothing more satisfying than a piece of gooey cinnamon something for breakfast”. Well who am I to argue with that? But I decided that I better put it to the test. Ideally, I should have waited for the weekend to come round again so that we could have this as a treat (in the vein of pancakes, or indeed, the aforementioned buns) but the urge to bake was too strong, And besides, the oven was going to be on anyway for supper, and you can never have too many cinnamon recipes in your repertoire.

I didn’t have the sour cream, but did have buttermilk. Now I am a Twitter newbie, I don’t pretend to understand even the basics, but I managed to tweet @Outsider Tart to ask if that would be OK, and guess what, they tweeted me back. How exciting! (I don’t get out much) Not only that, but yes, buttermilk would do. I would probably have used it anyway, but it was good to get it straight from ‘the horse’s mouth’ as it were. You make up some cinnamon sugar and then the batter, then you layer the batter and sugar in a loaf tin, and make a zigzag (only one) through the batter to prompt the swirl of cinnamon during baking. 60 mins later – cinnamon heaven

I was going to keep it for breakfast tomorrow, but after a fairly virtuous supper - Chachouka with celeriac, apple, raisin and parsley salad with flatbread (all from Veg Everyday, and not even one suggestion that some meat would have improved the meal – more progress!!), the mood was likely to have turned ugly had the cake been withheld. Still warm from the oven, it was of the “thin vein imparting a whiff of cinnamon” variety as opposed to the “...moist chewy blob your tongue will thank you for”. In truth I was hoping for the second but actually I don’t think I used enough of the sugar, and I also misread the recipe so instead of having 2 layers of sugar within the loaf, I had 2 in and a sprinkling on top.

However, to dwell on what might have been, along with my own failings, detracts from the fact that it was BLOODY LOVELY and I will definitely be making it again – possibly tomorrow, once we have finished off what remains for breakfast. Indeed, I will have to make it at least once more, because the recipe allows for double the required amount of cinnamon sugar to be made, the unused half to be kept for a ‘next time’. What a shame.