Every now and then, I get a hankering for some cinnamon raisin bread. However, the part I like the most is the cinnamon swirls. The raisins are pretty “meh.” Of course, when you bake it at home instead of getting it at the store, you can modify to suit your own tastes. I found this recipe for the World’s Best Cinnamon Raisin Bread and, while I can’t promise it’s actually the best in the world, I can vouch that it works really well. One handy part of the recipe is that there’s a built in calculator that modifies the ingredients list based on how many batches you’re in the mood for.

To modify the recipe, I usually add extra sugar for the filling and along with the cinnamon, I’ll add some cardamom and/or cloves. Also, I usually swap the raisins out for dried cranberries, which are a far superior dried fruit, in my opinion.

This last time, though, I was wondering how blueberries would work. I went with dried instead of fresh or frozen because I needed something that would hold up to the level of manhandling needed to prepare the bread. Here’s the dough, right before I rolled it out. The blueberries held up really well.

One important thing to remember about this bread recipe is that a few slices with the knife can magically transform a loaf of bread into breakfast rolls.

Once they were baked, I topped the rolls with a simple confectioner’s sugar & milk icing that had a handful of almonds mixed in. The almonds added a lovely crunch and I’ll definitely be repeating that addition in the future.

In the end, the blueberries were okay, but cranberries remain my favorite. After this experiment, I started wondering what it’d be like to use apples as the main attraction in this recipe. One thing’s for sure, more experimentation is needed.