NM's Old-Fashioned Raisin Bread

The first time I've seen this bread was from Hanaa's Kitchen and I knew that I will be making this bread, sooner or later. Hanaa got the recipe from Nick Malgieri's blog here. Nick Malgieri is sharing two recipes, a sneak preview from his latest book "BREAD" which will be out in September 2012. 

This recipe makes two loaves and I'm glad that I did not make half the recipe! It smells really nice while baking in the oven and as soon as they are cool enough, I sliced one loaf and could not stop eating at just one slice! It was so good, especially fresh from the oven! The texture is soft, moist and very tasty! Nick uses two types of raisins, dark and golden. The original recipe uses 3 cups of mixed raisins, which I think is a little too much for me, so I only use 2 cups, and it turned out just right! Nick Malgieri described this bread as "nothing fancy about this bread but a slightly sweetened and enriched white bread loaded with dark and golden raisins, and they'll be gone before you know it"! I couldn't agree more! 

It is a really simple and easy bread to make. If you have a stand mixer, then you are good to go! Here, I've taken some photographs and you can see how easy it is!

1.  First, whisk the water and yeast together, then whisk in the cooled scalded milk.
2. Flour, sugar, salt are added in.
3. Stir with spatula to a rough dough.
4. Distribute pieces of butter all over top of rough dough.
5. Using the mixer fitted with dough hook, mix on lowest speed until butter is absorbed, about 2 minutes, and increase speed to low/medium and mix until dough is smooth and elastic, another 3 minutes, (mine took about 8-10 minutes). Decrease speed to lowest and add in raisins a little at a time, until the raisins are evenly distributed in the dough.

Scrape dough onto a work surface and knead briefly to ensure that the raisins are evenly distributed in the dough. Place dough in into a buttered or greased bowl, turn it over so the top is coated. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise until doubles in size, about an hour. 

Invert risen dough to a lightly floured work surface and cut into 2 equal pieces. Gently pat each piece into a rough square and roll it from the top down., into a tight cylinder. Pinch the sides and place in greased loaf pans, seam side down. Cover with greased plastic wrap and leave to rise until dough has risen about an inch above the edge of the pans. Remove plastic and bake in a preheated oven (refer nstruction for the temperature in the recipe below).

Freshly baked Old-Fashioned Raisin Bread

Nice, plump moist raisins, with soft, moist and fluffy bread. This bread is a winner!

Good eaten on its own!

I'm looking forward to Nick Malgieri's new book!

I'm sharing this with :
BYOB, Bake Your Own Bread hosted by Girlichef
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes


Old-Fashioned Raisin Bread
(source from : Nick Malgieri)

1 cup/225gm room temperature tap water, about 75F

3 teaspoon/10gm fine granulated active dry or instant yeast

1 cup/225gm whole milk, scalded and cooled

5 cups/675gm unbleached bread flour

1/3 cup/70gm sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon/10gm fine sea salt

4 tablespoons/55gm unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces and softened

1-1/2 cups/150gm dark raisins or currants (I use 1 cup)

1-1/2 cups/150gm golden raisins (I use 1 cup)

Two 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 2-3/4-inch loaf pans brushed with soft butter or coated with vegetable cooking spray

1. Whisk the water and yeast together in the bowl of a stand mixer; whisk in the cooled milk.
2. Stir together the flour, sugar, and salt, and add to the mixer bowl. Use a large rubber spatula to stir the ingredients to a rough dough. Distribute the pieces of butter all over the top of the dough.
3. Place on the mixer fitted with the dough hook and mix on lowest speed until the butter is absorbed, about 2 minutes. Increase the speed to low/medium and mix until the dough is smooth and elastic, an additional 3 minutes.
4. Decrease the speed to lowest and add the raisins a little at a time, continuing to mix until they are fairly evenly absorbed by the dough.
5. Scrape the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly to ensure that the raisins are evenly distributed in the dough.
6. Drop the dough into a buttered or sprayed bowl and turn it over so that the top is coated. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough ferment until it doubles in bulk, about an hour or longer if it's cool in the kitchen.
7. Invert the risen dough into a lightly floured work surface and cut it into 2 equal pieces, each about 715 grams. Gently pat one of the pieces to a rough square and roll it from the top down, jellyroll style, into a tight cylinder. Pinch the edge in place and drop into one of the pans, seam side down. Repeat with the other piece of dough.
8. Cover the loaves with butter or sprayed plastic wrap and let them proof until the dough comes about an inch above the edge of the pan.
9. Once the loaves are almost proofed, set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.
10. Place the pans in the oven and decrease the temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the raisin bread until it is well risen and has an internal temperature of 200 degrees, about 45 to 55 minutes.
11. Unmold and cool the loaves on rack on their sides. Let cool several hours before wrapping.

Green Chile And Cheese Cornbread : IHCC, Rick Bayless

Theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs this week is all about "Yellow", where we are currently cooking from Rick Bayless's recipes. What is yellow and yummy? Corn, of course! But in this case, it is cornmeal. Beautiful yellow cornmeal turns into a scrumptious yummy cornbread, and it is so easy! This recipe of Rick Bayless's Cornbread, uses Poblano chiles, which I can never find over here, so I just omitted that. And he uses only 1 jalapeno chile for the full recipe, but I used 4 jalapenos for half the recipe.  I'm a fan of jalapenos!

Lovely sunny yellow of cornmeal and a lighter side of yellow from the cheese. I replaced the Monterey Jack cheese with Cheddar cheese instead.

Green fresh jalapenos. I roasted the jalapenos in a dry saucepan until the skins are blistered and cracked. Wrapped them up in towel, leave to cool. Peel the skin, seeded and chopped to small bits. The jalapenos has a lovely smokey roasted aroma, yum!

The original recipe is baked using a 9" square pan, but since I only made half the recipe, I baked them in muffin pans instead, which yield exactly 6 standard muffins.

Golden and beautiful cornbread.

These cornbread are really delicious!

It has a moist, soft texture and very tasty. And I love the bits of green jalapenos in the golden yellow cornbread. I ate one while still warm, and it was so good, moist from the cheese and the smell of the roasted jalapenos is very nice, with a slight hint of spiciness. This recipe is a keeper! We ate this with some mushroom soup for a simple lunch. If you are a fan of cornbread with jalapenos,  make a batch, you will be glad that you did! I will definitely be making this again as a base recipe for cornbread, perhaps with some onions and chives, lovely! And with some homemade chilis, even better!

To see what the others are making, please visit IHCC.

I'm sharing this too with :
BYOB, Bake Your Own Bread at Girlichef
Bake With Bizzy at Bizzy Bakes
Full Plate Thursday at Miz Helen's Country Cottage


Green Chile and Cheese Cornbread
(source from : fronterafiesta, Rick Bayless)
1 poblano chile
1 jalapeno pepper
1-1/4 cups cornmeal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese

1. Roast poblano and jalapeno over a gas flame, turning often, until skin in blackened on all sides. Wrap in a towel and let cool. Peel, cut into half, remove seeds and core. Cut poblano into 1/4-inch diced. Finely chop the jalapeno.
2. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Generously grease a 9 by 9-inch baking pan.
3. Whisk cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mix eggs, milk and buttermilk in small bowl. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir just until combined. Gently fold in melted butter, poblano, jalapeno and cheese. Do not over mix.
4. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

THB : Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake

It's our third bake at The Home Bakers (THB), where we are currently baking from "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas. Three weeks has already passed and for this third bake, Chaya of Bizzy Bakes has chosen Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake. Stop by Bizzy Bakes to see other lovely bakes by Chaya.

A lovely cake with juicy blueberries and yummy streusel on top.

This cake was supposed to be bake in a 9" springform pan as instructed in the recipe. But I made only half the recipe, and baked it in a 6" round cake pan, greased and lined. It bakes up beautifully. 

I used frozen blueberries and at first am afraid that the blueberries might just sink to the bottom of the cake, but they did not! They are scattered throughout the cake very nicely.

The topping is really yummy. Bits of crunchy walnuts when eaten warm and tastes great too the next day when it has soften. I like it that this cake has an equal amount of all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour, as I have not use whole-wheat flour in cake-making, not that I can recall. I was expecting a dense and compact cake texture, but it turns out soft and with just the right amount of moistness.

On the first day, I can taste a slight soda taste, though my daughter did not complain, and say that the cake is really nice. However, I can't taste the soda the next day, and even had two slices for my breakfast with a mug of hot black coffee. I guess that baking soda is used because of the whole-wheat flour, the next time, when I make this, I'm gonna reduce the amount of soda and increase the baking powder. The whole-wheat flour gives a nice texture to this cake. As usual, I reduced the amount of sugar slightly.

This cake has a lovely soft crumb and bursting with juicy blueberries.  A good cake to have for breakfast or for tea-time with a cup of your favourite tea!

I've read from the comments over at THB regarding some of our fellow bakers having problem removing the cake because of the streusel. I use a pan of about 2" height, depending on the cake, that way when the cake has done baking, it will reach to the level of the cake pan, making it easier to invert the cake without disturbing the streusel. Loosen the sides of the cake with a thin flat knife or a spatula. Place a flat plate over the top of the cake, covering the pan that the cake was baked in, using both hands hold the cake pan and the plate, gently overturned the cake upside down on plate. Remove the cake pan and place a wire rack over the bottom of the cake, now facing up. Hold plate and wire rack and turn cake right side up, remove top plate and let cool completely. Once cool, repeat steps to store cake on a plate. To summarize, always use a flat plate, not a wire rack when placed over the streusel, that way the streusel won't drop off. And use a plate that is bigger than the cake, covering the streusel completely. Try to use a baking pan that is not too high when baking cakes with streusel.

Please do pay a visit to our THB bakers to see their lovely bake and stop by Chaya of Bizzy Bakes for the recipe.

THB is currently baking from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas, if you would like to join in, please hop over to THB for details on how to become a member. Everyone's welcome!