Several weeks ago I invested in an Oster Bread Making Machine and I have since been a busy baker. I have suggested that all my Foodie Readers also buy a bread machine, or dust off their old one, so we can swap recipes and compare results. Probably there are one or two who ignored my suggestion and still have no bread machine, but it’s their loss.
Let’s start baking some bread.
There are two reasons for baking bread. First, hot bread fresh out of the oven, slathered in butter, is as good as it gets. Second, if you bake and give a loaf to a neighbor, you will have a friend for life. One of my neighbors recently took care of our parakeets while we were on a short trip, so I baked them a loaf of potato bread. They want us to leave again, soon, so I might bake them another loaf. Another neighbor has been sharing from his bountiful garden, and I baked him a loaf of raisin bread. Took it over to him fresh and warm from the oven. They devoured it.
Raisin bread, I believe, is the best. Out of the oven, hot and sweet, it is simply incredible. But toasted the next morning, with lots of butter? Wow!
Raisin bread is really easy to make. It uses 4 cups bread flour, two tablespoons butter, 1 ¼ cups water, salt, sugar, dry milk, cinnamon, yeast and raisins. The recipe calls for 1 cup of raisins, but I use a little more. I urge you to get a bread machine if you don’t have one. You really don’t know what you’re missing.
2 Pound Loaf Raisin Bread
1 ¼ C water
2 T butter
1 ½ t salt
4 C bread flour
3 T sugar
2 T dry milk
1 ½ t cinnamon
2 ¼ t active dry yeast
1 ¼ C raisins
Mix dry ingredients, add to wet ingredients (including butter), set the machine for a basic recipe, and add raisins after 20 minutes. In 3 hours and 25 minutes, it’s ready to eat.
