Bread-Bakers v100.n064.15

Joni-

Congratulations on your one year bread-baking anniversary!  I admire your 
thorough note-taking on all of the bread you bake.  You asked about the 
gaps in cinnamon swirl bread.  Cooks Illustrated has an article written by 
Susan Logozzo on cinnamon swirl bread in its September/October 1998 
issue.  The article offers a cinnamon bread recipe as well as a variation 
for cinnamon rolls.  I quote the sections of the write-up that address the 
Gap Issue:

"The amount of filling was determined by one factor besides taste.  I 
discovered that using too much more than one-quarter cup of the 
cinnamon-sugar mixture resulted in small separations between the filling 
and the bread because the excess sugar prevented the dough from staying 
together.  I eventually discovered that one-quarter cup of sugar mixed with 
five teaspoons of cinnamon resulted in a tasty bread with no gaps.

Rolling and shaping the dough into a loaf are crucial steps.  In order to 
create swirls in the finished bread and end up with a loaf that would fit 
into a 9-inch loaf pan, I rolled the dough out evenly into a rectangle 8 
inches wide and 18 inches long.  When I rolled the dough out longer than 
this, it was so thin that the filling popped through the edges in some 
places.  Rolling the dough up evenly and closely was also important.  When 
I rolled the dough too tightly, the filling popped through;  rolling too 
loosely produced an uneven loaf and gaps between the swirls and the bread. 
Finally, I found that I could prevent the filling from leaking and burning 
in the pan while baking if I pinched the edges of the bottom seam and the 
ends of the roll together very tightly.. . . Proofing time is also crucial. 
In fact, finding the proper proofing time entirely solved the gap puzzle. 
When I underproofed the shaped loaf by allowing it to rise just to the top 
of the pan, the baked bread was dense and did not have a fully risen, 
attractive shape.  But, when I allowed the unbaked loaf to proof too much, 
1 1/2 inches or more above the pan, I ended up with those unwanted gaps 
between dough and filling.  ...Allowing the dough to rise just 1 inch above 
the top of a 9-inch loaf pan before baking resulted in a perfectly shaped 
loaf with no gaps."

Hope this helps!  Cooks has a web-site <http://www.cooksillustrated.com>, 
but because they operate without advertising, accessing their recipes on 
computer costs a few bucks.

Alexandra