raisin bread

I like to eat raisin bread, especially those with ground all-spice / mixed spice added to the bread dough. It is so aromatic and utterly irresistible.

Raisin bread is flavourful enough to be eaten on its own. When the fancy takes me, I will spread butter or peanut butter on the slice of raisin bread. For extra oomph, I would recommend that you spread butter on a slice of raisin bread and thereafter toast the bread in an oven. Yummy!

What was interesting about the raisin bread that I baked was that even though I added castor sugar instead of brown sugar, the bread turned out brown instead of white in colour. It may be due to the all-spice / mixed spice and/or the "juice" from the raisins. As I only used the "dough" cycle of my breadmaker machine, I added the raisins together with the rest of the ingredients. If you are using the full bread cycle of your breadmaker machine, you may like to add the raisins only when you hear the beep in your breadmaker machine (if your machine has such a beep function).

INGREDIENTS

1 cup water
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp castor sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground all-spice / mixed spice
3/4 cup raisins
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast

METHOD

1. Place all the ingredients (except the bread flour and the yeast) in the bucket of your breadmaker machine.

2. Add the bread flour, making sure that the wet ingredients are totally covered.

3. Add the yeast.

4. Place the bucket in the breadmaker machine and set to "dough" cycle. Start the cycle.

5. When the "dough" cycle has been completed, turn the dough onto a floured board. Using floured hands, knead the dough about 5 times.

6. Place the dough in a loaf pan that has been greased and lined with baking paper.

7. Cover the loaf pan with a damp cloth and leave for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

8. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celsius for 35 minutes.

9. Let the bread cool thoroughly before slicing.