Raisin Bread : Rose's Bread Bible Bakers

This month's selected recipe at Rose's Bread Bible Bakers, an online group of bloggers who are currently baking through Rose Levy Beranbaum's book, The Bread Bible, is Cinnamon Raisin Bread. A soft white raisin bread which is spiraled with cinnamon sugar. I have however decided to omit the cinnamon sugar, as I wanted a soft white bread, with just raisins all over. 

The recipe makes two loaves of bread, but I've halved it to make one loaf. The dough is a pleasure to work with, soft but not sticky. Starts with a dough starter, which is left to ferment for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature. There are a couple of resting times during the process of mixing the dough. After that the dough is left to rise until doubled, then form into a rectangle, give it one business letter turn, covered in a container and refrigerate for an hour for easier rolling. I left it in the refrigerator for about 3 hours.

Since I have omitted the spiral with the cinnamon-sugar, I shaped the dough into a loaf and place it in the greased loaf pan. Leave to rise until it has risen about 1/2 inch from the top of the pan. Bake as directed in the recipe.

Bakes up lovely. Freshly baked, cooling off on a rack. 

I baked the bread the night before, and sliced the loaf the next morning for breakfast. The bread is soft, moist and wonderful! 

The lovely soft interior. I love raisins in breads.

Toasted and spread with butter and my homemade Orange and Cardamom Jelly, for breakfast, with a mug of hot coffee. Wonderful! My hubby enjoyed his three slices, without any jam or butter, with thumbs up from him! 

Rose has given a variation for Herb Spiral Loaves, sounds like the perfect bread for a sandwich! I will be trying that soon! 

Up next in September, we will be baking Basic Hearth Bread, on page 305.

I'm also linking this post with Cookbook Countdown Specials : Bake