Raisin Bread

Photo Credit: Alex Budgell

I am very behind on posting this but really want to share this recipe.  About a month ago, my colleagues from my food photography course and I got together to experiment with lighting, setups and take some more photos. If you missed it, read about my food photography class here. The get together was a lot of fun! We thought it would be neat to practice on breads so I baked this bread in the morning before hand. The recipe is from Kitchen Aid 3 in 1 Cookbook. It was easy to make. Of course I used my beloved Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. If you don't have a stand mixer you can kneed by hand.  I stole Alex's photo for the blog, as I really like it. And by stole, I mean I got permission of course.

Here are the photographers in action:

Here are a few of my favourite photos from the day:

The others got some great shots. It was a lot of fun to share photos after and see what everyone came up with.

Anyway back to the bread..

After tasting this bread,  I got a few requests from people for more. Not just more actually, they wanted their own loaves. My mom even said that I am generous about sharing my brussel sprouts.. not so much when it comes to breads. So I quickly got to work and whipped up some more. After all, I can't have that as my reputation.  Luckily the recipe makes 2 loaves so it was easy to oblige. This bread is delicious toasted with butter. It also keeps really well in the freezer.

Ingredients:
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 packages active dry yeast (or quick rise. If you use quick rise you can skip the first 1.5 hour rise)
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup raisins
- 2 tablespoons melted butter, divided
- 8 teaspoons sugar
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions
1. Combine flour, salt and yeast in a bowl of an electric stand mixer. melt 1/4 cup butter in small saucepan over low heat; stir in milk and honey until mixture is warm but not hot. Whisk in eggs; remove from heat.
2. Add egg mixture and raisins to flour mixture. With dough hook, kneed on low until dough separates from sides of bowl and forms a ball. Continue mixing 2 minutes.
3. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl, turning to coat top. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place 1.5 hours. If you are using quick rise yeast just let it rise 15 minutes.
4. Grease and flour loaf pans 2 (8x4) or use non-stick pans. Punch down dough and separate into 2 balls. Shape each ball into an 8x10 inch rectangle. Brush top of dough with 1 tablespoon melted butter

5. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Reserve 2 teaspoons of the mixture for later and sprinkle remaining evenly over dough.
6. Roll up 1 dough rectangle; starting with the short side; place in prepared loaf pan. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise 1 to 1.5 hours until almost doubled in bulk.

7. Preheat oven to 375. Bake loaves 35 minutes or until golden brown, rotating once halfway. When you rotate them brush the top with remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and sprinkle with reserved cinnamon sugar. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

Enjoy!!