Unplug Your Kids: Spiral

This month's theme at Unplug Your Kids is Spiral.  Immediately, I thought of cinnamon swirl bread!  We love to make food for our Unplugged themes.  Usually, it is just Arin and myself making the project, but we ALL get to enjoy the fruits of our labor, if we make a food item! 

We started the project with Arin helping to make my normal bread recipe, which can be found here. 

Ella, has a natural curiosity about the goings on in the kitchen.  She LOVES to be held while I am making dinner, and I believe this is just because she likes to watch.  So I sat her at the bar to watch Arin make the bread. 

Ella was content to watch Arin, but then I let her try helping and it was all over from there!  She LOVES helping as well and she really didn't make much of a mess!  It was a delight to cook with BOTH of my girls today!

After, the bread did its first rising, I rolled it out and let Arin butter it and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar.  Ella quickly climbed on the chair to see what was going on, but she didn't fuss about not helping, which was a good thing.  I rolled up the bread, allowed a second rising and then baked it off.

This bread tastes amazing, like a giant cinnamon roll.  This is the second time that I have attempted cinnamon swirl bread and both times, the outside rose beautifully, but the inside was not so pretty.  What am I doing wrong?  Not rolling it tight enough?  Not letting it cook long enough?  I need some advice so we can improve the appearance and continue enjoying this yummy treat!