Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Loaf

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I have been eating this yummy blueberry pound cake that tastes great, but didn’t turn out very pretty. However I started noticing my youngest was getting fussy, which typically means something I ate is bothering his tummy. So I needed something else for breakfast. I was perusing Pinterest and stumbled upon this cinnamon swirl buttermilk loaf and cinnamon roll cake. Can we say yum! I’ll try out the cake next week once I’ve finished devouring this bread.

The cinnamon swirl buttermilk loaf came from The Baking ChocolaTess. She has several other recipes I need to try out as well as some good baking 101 tips that are very helpful. Check out her site and let me know if you find something else you really enjoy.

So what all will I need?

• Cinnamon
• brown sugar
• sugar
• all purpose flour
• baking soda
• salt
• buttermilk or milk & vinegar
• egg
• canola oil
• butter extract (optional)
• powdered sugar
• milk or dairy free option
• vanilla extract

Cinnamon Swirl & Dry Ingredients

Start your oven and let it preheat to 350 degrees. We will prep the cinnamon swirl and dry ingredients first. In a small bowl, mix together 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 2 Tablespoons brown sugar, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Set this bowl aside for later.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set this bowl aside as well.

Making the batter… in between chasing the baby

My youngest just discovered how to crawl. And being the grumpy little man that he is, he was having none of being in the walker, jumper, or pack and play. So he was on the floor during this recipe. Yikes is an understatement!

If you don’t have buttermilk or are using dairy free like me, then you will need to make buttermilk. This recipe makes it easy because you’re using a cup of buttermilk. To make buttermilk you will need 1 cup of milk and 1 Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice. I used almond milk and white wine vinegar. Mix the two together and let it sit 5-10 minutes before using. Don’t forget to stir it up before you pour it in.

In a large bowl, mix together 1 egg, 1/4 cup canola oil, 1 cup buttermilk (or what you just made), and 1 teaspoon butter extract. I did not have butter extract so I used vanilla extract here. Once those are well blended, add the bowl of dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Be careful not to over mix it.

At this point you need to pull out a 9 x 5 loaf pan. The recipe said to spray it with non-stick spray. Make sure your spray has flour in it. I opted to just Crisco the pan and it stuck horribly. I got lucky and it eventually gave way, but next time I will Crisco and flour if I don’t have spray with flour.

Pour half of the batter in the pan. Grab your bowl of cinnamon swirl from earlier, get the baby away from his walker, and sprinkle 2/3 of the cinnamon sugar on top of the batter. Top with the remaining batter and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar on top.

You’re almost there!

Carefully take a knife and swirl through the batter. Make sure to go deep enough to get through the middle layer but do not drag it across the bottom. That’s a recipe for it to stick to the pan.

There ya go! It’s ready for the oven! Bake it for 50-60 minutes or until a tester in the middle comes clean. I cooked mine 65 minutes and I probably could have taken it out just a couple minutes earlier than I did. Let it cool for 20 minutes or more before slicing or dumping it out.

Glaze time!

You can add the glaze when it has completely cooled or when it’s still warm. It just depends on how thick you want the glaze. If you want a thick glaze let it cool completely. Otherwise add the glaze while it is still warm. I let mine cool almost completely before I poured it on; while holding the baby who was trying to grab the icing!

Mix together 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Next you will add the milk. Be careful as you only want enough to get it to the right consistency. I am forever adding too much milk, like I did today, and having to put more powdered sugar in to fix it. You will use somewhere between 1-2 Tablespoons of milk or almond milk. My suggestion is to add some, stir, and add a smidge more. If you get it too thin just add some more powdered sugar until you get it back to how you need it. Then pour it on.

If you don’t want a mess on your counter or stove put a cookie sheet under the cooling rack. Your icing will collect on it and make for easy clean up. I scraped what dripped down and added it to the loaf before it completely hardened up.

And there you have it. This is a quick bread so it will moisten up overnight. I did notice after a day in the fridge it was more moist. So if you can wait for the next day, let it sit until the icing hardens. Wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it as much as me! I need to pick up some butter extract before I make it again.