The most delicious homemade cinnamon raisin bread baked to perfection in a hot dutch oven! It has a doughy inside with sweet raisins and cinnamon, and a crunchy outer crust.
There is nothing quite like homemade bread. Especially this perfectly sweet cinnamon raisin bread. It has a light and crunchy crust, with a doughy inside, and it’s of course studded with perfectly sweet raisins. We love toasting this bread with butter or our recommended cinnamon honey butter for complete perfection!
For this recipe, all you’ll need is 1-bowl for mixing, a dutch oven pot, and a little over 30 minutes for the bread to bake. It’s EASY, so so tasty, and freezer-friendly.
Let’s get baking!
How to Make Cinnamon Raisin Bread
-
1
Activate the yeast with warm water.
-
2
Add rest of ingredients and stir until dough is sticky.
-
3
Place the dough on a floured surface then shape with hands into a ball. Place in a greased bowl, cover with a damp towel in a warm place and let rise for 3+ hours or until doubled in size.
-
4
Remove risen dough and use just enough flour on your hands and on the surface to form it into a ball.
-
5
Place on parchment paper then use edges of the paper to lift into the dutch oven. Cover and bake at 450F for 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake until golden brown on top (another 5-10 minutes).
Tools You’ll Need
- Kitchen Aid electric mixer with a dough hook (optional, but recommended)
- Cast iron pot
Our favorite dutch oven pot
We recommend a 6 Qt dutch oven pot for this recipe because it creates high & stable temperatures that are ideal for bread making. We love Lodge cast iron because they are quality cast iron and affordable! We use it with bread making, soups, popcorn, and so much more.
If you click this link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.Tips for Success
- Use your oven to proof the dough: whenever dough needs to rise, it’s best to let it sit in a consistent and controlled climate. I prefer using my oven with the light on (oven settings are off). This creates a consistent temperature while the oven light develops a small amount of warmth to encourage the dough to rise.
- Freeze it: Let the bread cool and store in a freezer-friendly bag (press all the air out) and freeze for 1-2 months. Let thaw at room temperature and reheat in the oven at 350F until warm.
- Tips if preheating dutch oven: this recipe doesn’t call for preheating your dutch oven, but if choose to do this I recommend doing a double layer of parchment paper to ensure the bottom of the bread doesn’t get too brown.
- Easy cinnamon honey butter recipe: Make delicious and slightly sweet honey butter to spread on your homemade bread. You’ll need 1 tsp honey, a pinch of cinnamon, 3 tbsp room temperature butter – mix together in a small bowl and spread on your bread when done. SO good.
Baking with Yeast
Active dry yeast: You’ll need to take different steps when baking bread with different yeasts. If you have active dry yeast on hand, you will need to activate it in water before adding flour (this step is included in the instructions).
Instant yeast: If you have instant yeast, you can skip dissolving it in water and stir it into your dry ingredients before adding water. Instant yeast has super small granules compared to active dry yeast so it does not need to be activated in water first.
If you love this cinnamon bread, you might also be a fan of our cranberry walnut bread! Equally as delicious and just as easy to make.
Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 3 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup raisins
- 2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Make the dough: In an electric mixer add warm water, sugar, and yeast. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes for yeast to activate tip: sugar feeds yeast so I include it in this process. Add raisins, cinnamon, flour, and salt. Use bread mixing attachment and mix together until dough forms. If dough is too wet or dry, add water/flour 1 Tbsp at a time until right consistency.
- Let it rise: Toss dough on lightly floured surface, place in lightly greased bowl. Cover with a damp dish towel and let sit in a warm area for 3+ hours. Dough should be doubled in size. Tip: I like placing my dough in the oven with the light on (oven is off). This helps create a consistent climate for the dough while the light creates a small amount of warmth to help it rise.
- Preheat oven to 450F.
- Transfer dough: Place dough on lightly floured surface and form into ball again (keep lightly flouring your hands to prevent sticking). Lay dough on parchment paper, lightly dust paper to prevent sticking, and lift edges of paper to transfer dough into dutch oven.
- Bake: Cover with lid and bake for 30 minutes, uncover and bake for 5-10 more minutes until golden brown.
- Let it cool: Remove and let bread cool for 20 minutes before slicing.
So easy to make and incredibly tasty!
FANtastic recipe! I made the bread dough the night before. I coated a large bowl with EVOO, placed dough in bowl, brushed top with EVOO, covered with plastic wrap, then let it rise in the fridge overnight (this is how I “lazy” rise). Next morning, reshaped the dough with a little flour and placed in a parchment-lined dutch oven (dough was cold). I lightly brushed it with a little flour on top. Preheated my oven 450 degrees and reduced the temp 400 degrees once I put the dough in the oven. (my brand of parchment paper is safe up to 400 degrees) Baked 30 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered. For the ingredients, I added 4 T brown sugar and one cup of raisins. The taste and texture was amazing! Thank you for sharing!
Hi Robbin, Am seriously considering making raisin cinnamon bread. Found this recipe & was reading comments. LOVE your comment & may try it… since I’m disabled a bit & LOVE your ‘lazy’ rising method…lol. Since it turned out tht good with less work, who wouldn’t want to try it. Thanks for the tip. L Bluebird: )
Would this recipe work in a bread cloche? I have an Emile Henry and I’m excited to try it with this recipe.
anything with a lid should work! 🙂
Hi Bethany – I’m excited to try your recipe after baking lots our sourdough no-knead loaves in my trusty Lodge casserole.
Question for you: I see that in your No-Knead Cranberry Walnut bread you use 1/2 tsp. of yeast, and this recipe calls for 1.5 tsps. Also the salt ratios are different 1 tsp. vs 1/2 tsp. I’m curious why the quantities are different as the flour/water quantities are the same. Thanks so much – I want to make sure I use enough yeast but not too much. Happy Thanksgiving from Port Townsend, WA
Hey Frances! The reason this loaf has more yeast in it then my no knead bread is because the more yeast makes for a quicker rise. This bread should be done rising in about 3 hours. But the cranberry bread has less yeast so that the fermentation process can happen naturally over a longer period of time. Hope that helps!
Thanks so much for the quick reply and explanation! I’ll opt for less yeast/longer ferment and report back! Both recipes are on my ‘to bake’ list this month! With gratitude, Frances
Can you use bread flour instead of all purpose flour?
I’ve not used it in this recipe but you can certainly try it out!
Super easy and delicious! I saved time on the 3 hrs rising part by wrapping my bowl with a heating pad. Doubled its size in 1 hr 50 minutes .
So glad to hear it!
I made the no knead raisin bread and found it’s bottom was burned and hard. The second time I placed two baking sheets under the pot and took them out when I opened the pot lid during the last 15 minutes. The loaf came out perfect, the crust was crispy but not burned.
Hi mary! My only answer is every oven is different. So I would keep an eye on the loaf after the is removed. Once it’s golden brown it should be good! I’m glad you found a way to prevent it from not burning!
This turned out SO nicely. I used half whole wheat flour and half white flour. Added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice since I like things with stronger spice. Otherwise followed the recipe exactly. Tastes delicious and was quite easy to prepare. Bottom of mine got dark but didn’t burn. I will definitely be making this again soon. Doubling up mostly likely so some can go in the freezer!
Can this be made if you don’t have a stand mixer?
yes! Just use a large bowl and a wooden spoon. 🙂
If I want to use whole wheat flour what would be the portions you would recommend?
Very good! I increased raisins to 1 cup (plumped first in hot water) and cinnamon to 1 tablespoon. While it spread out once in the pan, it was still perfect to look at and to eat! I plan on making these for the family for Thanksgiving gifts since we cannot celebrate together this year. Thanks for a great recipe!
This is my favorite bread recipe. We use to buy our raisin bread from the bakery but no more. Everyone who tastes it wants the recipe. I use 1 cup raisins instead of 2/3’s. I also preheat the Dutch Oven. Yummy!!! By accident I used current raisins the first time and that was really good as well.
I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you, Robyn. I’ll have to try it with currents next 🙂