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Ontario, Canada
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
--Bobby Flay

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Raisin Bread

I make a lot of yeast breads and while all are enjoyed, raisin bread has to be one of my husband's favourites. I've modified most of my yeast bread recipes to be able to make the dough using the KitchenAid® stand mixer. I find I am getting better results using the stand mixer for all breads. I'm also getting better results because I finally chucked all of my Baker's Secret bakeware and replaced it with Wilton. I honestly got tired of the Baker's Secret non-stick coating flaking off and then having to replace it under normal use. The Wilton bakeware is non-stick but is quite heavy but more important it results in a lovely loaf of bread. Metal loaf pans give better results than silicone loaf pans so do use metal when baking bread.

Raisin Bread

Raisin bread smells heavenly baking, making your mouth water before it is taken from the oven. It is the perfect breakfast and snacking bread. It also makes wonderful toast. Raisin bread really almost falls under the category of comfort foods. We like raisin bread nice and warm with a little butter or cream cheese. A loaf never last long and is one of the first to be requested especially during the colder months. Life is good curled up on the couch, munching on raisin bread while the snow creates a blanket on the ground!

Raisin Bread

1 ⅔ c milk
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp organic sugar
1 ½ tsp sea salt
⅓ c raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
4 ¼ c unbleached flour
1 ½ tsp instant yeast

Place the dry ingredients except raisins in the stand mixer bowl. Mix on speed 2 for 30 seconds. Add butter to the bowl and mix on speed 2 for 30 seconds. Continue mixing while slowly adding milk. The dough should clean the sides of the bowl. If not add just a little extra flour until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead on speed 2 for 3 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Reduce speed to 1 and slowly add in raisins until well mixed. Turn off mixer and remove dough hook. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until double. Punch down and form into a loaf. Place in loaf pan and let rise until double. Bake at 205ºC (400ºF) until golden brown and loaf sound hollow when thumped with the back of a spoon. Turn the loaf out onto a baking rack to cool.


6 food lovers commented:

Jazmin said...

I have mostly pyrex bakeware rather than metal.. have you used that and how does it compare to metal? I agree on the silicon, I'm not much of a fan.

Garden Gnome said...

I don't have any glass loaf pans but have other Pyrex bakeware. The recommendation when using glass bakeware is to reduce the temperature by 25 degrees fahrenheit. So I would try the bread in your Pyrex at a lower setting and keep an eye on it for proper browning.

Silicone is nice for some things but bread is not one of them. I thought I would like the silicone bakeware a lot more than I do. Mine gets used mainly for quick breads and muffins.

Unknown said...

Hello, am I missing something or is there no flour in this recipe? just didn't seem right to me...Kristy in North GA

Garden Gnome said...

Oh dear! It would appear my "sometimers" coupled with multi-tasking caused an omission. I've corrected the recipe. Sorry about that.

LindaG said...

Do you have a list of recipes you have modified? Or could you tell me how to go about modifying a recipe to work with a stand mixer?
I want to get a good mixer for when we retire (I plan on making a lot of home made bread)and will probably get the Kitchen Aid, too.

Thank you, GG. :)

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Linda :) Most of the yeast bread recipes on this blog have been modified to use the stand mixer. There are a few that are for bread machines but mainly most of them have been modified.