Cinnamon & Black Pepper Fruity Bread Swirls - Sugar-Free Healthy Snack (Original Recipe)
Cinnamon, black pepper, dates, apples, oats... all rolled up in soft wholewheat bread... yum! Particularly delicious fresh and warm from the oven, but they're wonderful cold too. They make a really handy snack to bring out and about, for either the little 'uns or the big 'uns... whoever's hungry!
When I was little I remember eating these things called 'Chelsea Buns', which are a kind of currant bun in a square-spiral shape and glazed with sugar. They're rather on the sweet-and-sickly side for my taste, and I much prefer dates to currants/sultanas, but I guess they were the inspiration behind my recipe! I just made it up and wrote it down as I went along (as is often the case when I start baking) and am so happy with the results. Definitely be making these again!
Sorry vegan friends, this recipe uses butter, but perhaps it would work just as well with olive oil (or some other butter substitute?) All ideas for vegan versions welcome for any of my recipes!
Ingredients:
600g wholewheat flour
100g butter
1 sachet yeast
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp black pepper
2 tblsp cinnamon
350ml warm water
75g ground oats
100g dates
2 sweet apples (I use Gala)
Directions:
In a large bowl rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips. Add the yeast, cinnamon, black pepper and baking soda, and the warm water. Use your hand to mix and form a firm dough.
Knead the dough for 5 minutes until smooth.
You can skip this next step and use flour instead of oats if you want, but I prefer oats for flavour and they give a little extra texture too. I grind the oats in the grinder attachment on my blender, and sprinkle on the surface where I will roll out my dough. I also sprinkle generously with cinnamon, so the ground oats and cinnamon both get pressed right into the dough. Lovely.
Place the dough onto the oats-and-cinnamon-dusted surface, and roll out to about 0.5cm thick.
Finely chop the dates and sprinkle onto the dough. Roll over with your rolling pin to press the dates into the dough.
Peel and dice the apples, and saute with a little water in a pan for 5-10 minutes until the apple has softened. Mash with a vegetable masher or hand-blender, and spread a fine layer all over the dough, right up to the edges.
Sprinkle with extra oats & cinnamon, and then roll the dough into a tube.
Slice up into pieces about 1 inch thick, and lay carefully onto a lightly-dusted baking tray.
Pop into a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 15-20 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Transfer to a cooling rack to avoid condensation underneath.
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("5 Cs" shared with kind permission from @kiwideb)
Wow! It’s incredible recipe! Really looks so good, especially with the apple and dates, it will come so yummy!
Thank you! So yummy!
These swirls look amazingly good, I wonder though how do they taste with black pepper!
Thank you! For me the black pepper brings out the spiciness and warmth of the cinnamon... so unless someone told you they had black pepper you probably wouldn't even know it! :-)
I really have to start baking ,more..........another delicious recipe Joanna. I am saving them all, but the truth is, that I don't have an oven, only small toaster oven and I have to bake at my daughter's place, which is almost impossible with the boys now, when they are older, lol.
Oh my goodness - a cook without a cooker! Yes, I can well imagine how hard it would be to try baking with twin boys running about and trying to get involved and all the rest! My boy is fascinated with water, so every time I run the kitchen tap or fill the washing-up-bowl, he comes running in splashing about and it's ever so distracting when I'm trying to bake or take photos!
Seems like our twins and your boy have a lot in common, lol.
That sounds superbi have a couple of "sweet" recipes using black pepper. Always intimidated to try because I always think it's odd for sweets to have black pepper in them 😅 is it spicy? Can we taste the black pepper?
Hey there @thekitchenfairy! How are you? I actually find the black pepper brings out the spiciness and warmth of the cinnamon, so unless you knew they had black pepper in you may not even notice. You should definitely give it a go and let me know your thoughts!
I'm good thank you! Hope you and your little one is also good ❤️❤️
I will as am intrigued! Will tag you when I try the recipe 😊
We're all great here thanks! Finally enjoying some rare sunny weather here in north-west Ireland :-) I look forward to your opinion of the bread!
When I looked at the pic I though these are cinnamon rolls haha :D they look so much like them and the shape of them is PERFECT!! Love the fruit you included in there :)
Thanks! Yes they're very similar to cinnamon rolls, though these are probably heavier with it being a bread dough. And of course I don't use sugar so not quite as sweet as traditional cinnamon roll, but tasty nonetheless! Love using a thin layer of applesauce to stick dough, just gives a hint of apple flavour and extra sweetness with the dates, and adds a bit of stickiness which is always a bonus :-)