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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Shirley’s Iced Cinnamon Raisin Bread

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Before I went to Pennsylvania to visit my friend Zoë and her mom Valerie, I spent some time with my friend Jennifer’s mom Shirley. Last fall Shirley sent me an email asking if I would give her some rug hooking lessons.

dough rising

She bakes. Really well. So of course I said yes. 😉

Plus, she has what I would consider the coziest house on the planet {complete with wood stove, white walls, heavy doors, fat trim work and the most amazing wood floors you’ve ever seen}. Her house makes me drool. Seriously, I need to make a special trip there with the HH so I can give him a tour of the place and say “Build this. This is the house I want to live in for the rest of my life.”

butternut squashShirley even stores squash and sweet potatoes under her bed. Seriously, how can you not love a house with squash hiding under the bed?
drawing out rug hooking patterns

Yada, yada, yada.

We popped a couple of pills, downed a bottle of whiskey and hooked rugs until the wee hours of the morning when the cops finally showed up and told us to keep it down because we were howling at the moon.
shirley kurtz

I’m kidding. We had a good time. I taught her how to hook, and she made 6 delicious loaves of the best cinnamon raisin bread on the planet. As her guest, I graciously gobbled up ate every slice offered to me. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it. 😉

5 from 4 votes
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Shirley’s Iced Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Seriously, you need to find some raisins and make this bread. It will change your life.
Author Mavis Butterfield

Ingredients

  • 1 medium potato , peeled and chopped {I used a red potato. but any potato will do}
  • 4 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 tablespoons yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 11-12 cups bread flour {I used King Arthur}
  • 16 ounces raisins
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3½ cups confectioner’s sugar
  • 1/2 cup stick butter , softened
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2-3 tablespoon of milk {I used 2%}

Instructions

  1. Put the chopped potato and the 4 cups of water in a saucepan and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Drain, reserving the liquid in a bowl. Mash the potatoes with the butter and salt, add the reserved liquid and set aside.
  2. Place the yeast in 1 cup of warm water and let it rest for 10 minutes.
  3. In a very large large bowl, stir together 6 cups of bread flour, sugar and the potato/water mixture. When the mixture has cooled to lukewarm, add the yeast. Stir until nice and smooth. Cover and rest for two hours. I mean, let the bread rest for two hours.
  4. Mix the spices and remaining flour {5-6 cups, it really just depends on how much you need to make a nice, soft dough}. Add the raisins and then turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead until smooth.
  5. Place the dough back in the unwashed bowl and cover. Let rise until double.
  6. Shape into loaves and place in greased pans {the recipe made four medium loaves for me, six smaller loaves for Shirley}. Let the dough rise again, covered, until doubled in size.
  7. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Cool.
  8. While the bread is baking, pull out your mixer and beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together, adding milk as needed {you want the icing to be nice and thick}.
  9. Once the bread has cooled, top the loaves with icing and let it set.

Recipe Notes

To serve, slice the cinnamon raisin bread, pop it in the toaster {icing to the sky} and toast. Spread a little butter on the toasted goodness and serve warm. Freeze any loaves you don’t plan to use in 3-4 days.

bread in the oven

bread resting on the counter

icing bread

cinnamon roll bread

cinnamon raisin bread

I made Shirley’s cinnamon raisin bread last week and let me tell you friends, it’s worth your time.

~ Mavis

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Comments

      • Holy goodness! I just perused Jennifer’s blog because Amanda apparently loved it. I had to tear myself away after 5 minutes because i think i forgot to blink the whole time! Such great photos! I am hoping to coax her out of her ginger cookies recipe (jar of creme-filled ring cookies). And thank you for the raisin bread recipe. It will be part of our Breakfast for Dinner (BFD) tonight.

        Reply

  6. Gah! Of course this is a PA recipe, it makes a ton! I was just chatting with my stepdad last night, thinking I’d like to make my mom’s cinnamon rolls. Which I’ve never made. I’m not even sure she had a recipe. So I went into our cookbook for the local church, and found a few. They all call for 7+ cups flour.

    I only have two bread pans, I need smaller recipes!!

    Reply

  9. Those look like nice bread pans that Shirley uses, do you know what brand they are?
    I will need to invest in more pans to make the full recipe.

    Reply

  10. I saved a copy of this. I really want to try it but I only have two bread pans. I will be looking for bread pans at garage sales. I hope I get lucky and find some.This recipe just looks so good!

    Reply

    • I just made a 1/4 recipe (1 loaf) just now. Verdict: so perfect!!! I probably under-rose the loaf at the end, and even slightly under-cooked it. Oops. In fact, I didn’t even smear the icing on it before our breakfast-for-dinner (we did smear the slices though). And it was still good. Caveats: I used 2T butter in the one loaf (would be 1/2c butter for the full recipe) because I think the original recipe on Jennifer’s website said so, and I used AP flour. After the second rise, to make a loaf shape, I pressed the dough into a flat 12″ square on a floured mat and sprinkled it with cinnamon and brown sugar befor rolling it up, pushing it a bit shorter, and putting it in the loaf pan. So mine had a cinnamon swirl to it. Worked great. Later I toasted a slice and buttered it. THAT was heaven. Will do again this weekend.

      Reply

  11. I made this today and OH!! Is it good. It made 4 loaves in Pyrex glass bread pans. I made 2 with raisins (a mix of regular, golden, and chopped dried apple, because I didn’t have many raisins left.) The other two are without raisins for my daughters who don’t like raisins. One of the best bread recipes I’ve tried. Thanks!

    Reply

  12. I made it this weekend and it turned out perfect. I think I ate one loaf by myself 🙂 Thank you again for sharing it!

    Reply

  14. Making this recipie now. I cut it in half so hopefully it comes out ok… only my second time making dough of any kind. Looks amazing and I know my family will love it.

    Reply

  15. My dough was very wet is that right? One loaf fell just putting it in the oven. Waiting for them to cool so I can see after slicing them. I will rate them after that.

    Reply

  19. Baking my 3rd batch of this marvelous bread for a family adventure this weekend . I will be doing 1 without raisins but I’m going to have to try the cinnamon swirl like Jennifer did.
    Thank you for the BEST recipe.

    Reply

    • That’s what I wanna know, and how mashed do they need to be? Like mashed potatoes or just kinda enough so that they aren’t whole any longer, lol. I don’t usually ask questions, I write my own recipes, lol! But this particular one sounded so amazing but was thrown off by the potatoes and I didn’t want to waste any food. Thanks!!

      Reply

  21. Hi I halved the recipe and it seemed very dry ……..?… the first dough would only take about 1/3 rd of the second lot of dry ….????
    What did I do wrong ?.

    Reply

    • I’m sorry you are having trouble Rebecca, I’ve halved this recipe many times and the bread always turned out great. It’s not a simple recipe and there are a lot of steps. I wish I could help.

      Reply

  22. Third time making this recipe, I’m addicted!!! I’ve followed the recipe using 2 Tablespoons of butter. Has always turned out amazing!!! Have included raisins, left them out, rolled up the dough with cinnamon sugar before baking. I believe next time I’m going to turn some of it into cinnamon rolls. FYI, I’ve consistenly made 4-9×5 loafs. Thank you for sharing!!!

    Reply

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