This morning I got up to a house that was 59º F.  That was on the inside of the house.  It was 4º F. on the outside.  Comparatively the house was warm, but it was still freezing to us.  We had the heat on.  We had a space heater running.  We had a fire burning in the fireplace.  We were still cold.  What to do.  Bake, of course!  We desperately needed the oven going too.

I wanted cinnamon bread – raised cinnamon bread.  That was going to take hours of raising.  Did I mention the temperature in my house?  Not very yeast friendly.  Granted, I could have set my oven to 100º and raised it in there, but I also didn’t want to wait the 4 hours to eat the bread.

So I did the next best thing.  I made cinnamon quick bread.  I found a recipe I liked the look of, but changed just a couple things.  I didn’t have any whole wheat flour on hand so I used all white flour.  I cut the sugar in half and I added some ground cardamom.  I only added ¼ teaspoon.  Next time I think I’ll add ½ teaspoon.  This would be fabulous with toasted pecans or walnuts.  Next time I think I’ll add some.  I adapted it for high elevation as well.  I have put those changes in parentheses.

Adapted from http://www.cookingforseven.com/2011/01/cinnamon-bread/

Cinnamon Quick Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 C. all-purpose flour
• ½ C. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder (1 ½ tsp. )
• ½ tsp. baking soda (3/8 tsp.)
• 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. ground cardamom
• 1 C. buttermilk or sour milk
• ¼ C. butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 T. butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 T. cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º F.  Grease a 9 X 5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a small bowl cut the 4 T. butter into small squares (pea sized) and toss with 1 T. cinnamon.  Keep in the refrigerator until ready to use.
3. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ground cardamom and salt.
4. In another bowl whisk eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla together.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until moistened.
6. Gently fold in the cinnamon covered butter pieces.  Pour into prepared loaf pan.
7. Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes.  Turn out and let cool until loaf will cut without crumbling.  Serve with a little butter and some cinnamon/sugar sprinkled on top.