Bonus Points

Yesterday I earned bonus points towards my Cookbook Challenge. I have a list of all my cookbooks- 66 of them to be exact, but there is a small group of cookbooks not on the list. See, the point of my cookbook challenge is to actually cull out my collection. There are more books that I want, but with 66 of them in active status, I have a hard time justifying more. So as I go through them, I decide whether each one is a keeper, or if it’s just taking up space. But there is that one small group of cookbooks that will not be removed, regardless of what they contain. This is a handful of church cookbooks and old cookbooks that we have received from Grandparents collections. I confess that I’m not sure which ones came from where, but I do know that some are from Andy’s Grandma, and some are from both of my Grandmothers. And since all of those wonderful ladies are no longer with us, the cookbook collection is here to stay.

The bonus points I speak of, are the points I garner from actually using one of these relics. And relics most of them are. Flipping through one of these books is like going through a time warp, it’s like looking at history. Yesterday’s cookbook was one of two I have that are from Woman’s Day magazine. I have two of these- the most current one being published in 1970. I sat down and flipped through, really just looking, when a recipe did catch my eye, and I just had to make it. I was looking at bread and pastry recipes when a simple Cinnamon Loaf revealed that I had all the necessary ingredients on hand. This was a very easy bread to put together, and it wasn’t long before the aroma of baking cinnamon and dough filled the house. I waited as long as I possibly could before slicing into the loaf, and we were not disappointed.

In a word, it was excellent. The bread was rich and buttery and full of cinnamon flavor and aroma. It was also pretty to look at. Slicing further in revealed that I didn’t roll up the dough quite as tight as I should have, and it probably could have used another five minutes in the oven, but overall… I had a hard time putting the knife down and backing away from the bread. One of the things I like about bread recipes from the past is that this was from a time before bread flour. So the tenderness in bread was achieved in other ways, specifically in this case, from the addition of eggs to the dough. This dough also wasn’t kneaded, which may sound odd, but for this loaf of swirl bread, it was perfect. I have loaded the recipe into the Recipe Trove exactly as it was written in the cookbook. I think the recipe directions add to the nostalgic feel of the recipe and should be part of the experience. So check out the recipe for Cinnamon Loaf, you will love it.