Dollywood-Style Cinnamon Bread

April 2025

Recipe from Cook's Country, October 2024 

I have never been to Dollywood but I've read that their cinnamon bread is very popular. Since I don't have a go-to cinnamon bread recipe I thought I should give it a try using the ATK version. Cinnamon bread is not something I make very often, though, partly because there is a very good version (available even on Amazon) from a San Jose bakery. Looking back through the blog there are some other possibilities that I have tried such as Amish Cinnamon Bread and Cinnamon Swirl Bread that I should try again. 

For the dough, flour and yeast were whisked together in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Warm water was added to the flour mixture and, using the dough hook, mixed until no dry flour remained. After the dough rested for 15 minutes melted butter, sugar, and salt were added and the dough kneaded on the mixer. The sticky, wet dough was rested until doubled in volume. While the dough rested a sugar coating was made by mixing brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt. The dough was patted into a 8x4-inch rectangle and cut into 5 equal rectangles. These were each coated in melted butter, rolled in the sugar mixture, and placed in a loaf pan. After rising until puffy the loaf was baked for about 30 minutes. While still hot a mixture of melted butter and  the sugar mixture were combined and brushed onto the warm loaf. I did not add the optional sugar glaze. Total time was about 4 hours, about 2½ hours was hands off. 

This bread is very rich with a lot of cinnamon and butter. There is no need to toast it or to add additional butter as it is already very buttery. It's a little messy to eat with the butter cinnamon mixture on the top and sides of most slices. There is nothing wrong with this decadent bread but I think I prefer some of the other breakfast breads that I have had. It was fun trying, though.