Raisin Bread
1 cake FLEISCHMANN'S YEAST 1 cup lukewarm water 1 cup milk, scalded and cooled 1 tablespoonful sugar 6 cups sifted flour 4 tablespoonfuls lard or butter 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup raisins 1 teaspoonful salt RAISIN Bread stands for "queen quality" among Breads. Made after this recipe it will give you Bread-enjoyment that you never knew before. Raisin Bread makes delicious toast. Whole wheat or Graham flour used in place of white flour affords a pleasing variety.
Dissolve yeast and one tablespoonful sugar in lukewarm liquid, add two cups of flour, the lard or butter and sugar well-creamed, and beat until smooth. Cover and set aside to rise in a warm place, free from draught, until light--about one and one-half hours.
When well-risen, add raisins well-floured, the rest of the flour, or enough to make a moderately soft dough, and the salt.
Knead lightly, or "throw and roll" as shown on page 15. Place in a well-greased bowl, cover and let rise again until double in bulk--about one and one-half hours.
Mould into loaves, fill well-greased pans half full, cover and let rise until light--about one hour. Glaze with egg diluted with water, and bake forty-five minutes.
Raisin Bread made with whole wheat or Graham flour affords a delightful change.
The booklet’s plain white loaf with sugar, fat and fruit added to it, built as a sponge and then a dough. Three rises before it reaches the oven, and the fruit and sugar make each of them slower than a plain loaf’s.
- Two liquids, both lukewarmA cup of water and a cup of scalded milk go in together at the start. Lukewarm means blood heat, which means the milk must have cooled properly first. With pasteurized milk the scalding can be skipped and the milk warmed straight to that point.
- Sugar and fruit slow the yeastThree-quarters of a cup of sugar and a cup of raisins hold the yeast back. The hour and a half allotted to each rise assumes a kitchen kept deliberately warm. In an ordinary modern room, expect closer to two hours and judge by the dough, not the clock.
- Flour the raisinsRolling them in flour before they go in keeps them from clumping together and from sinking through a soft dough. If the raisins are hard, soak them in warm water first and dry them well, or they will draw moisture out of the crumb around them.
- Fill the pans half fullHalf, not two-thirds. The dough comes up most of the way during the final hour and still has oven spring left in it. Overfilled pans give a loaf that tears along the shoulder.
- Forty-five minutes means a moderate ovenThat length for a loaf points at about 350 to 375°F (180 to 190°C). The egg glaze over a sweet dough darkens early; lay foil loosely over the top once it has the colour wanted and let the inside finish.
- The whole wheat variationThe page recommends Graham or whole wheat flour twice, which is a real suggestion and not only a flourish. Replacing all six cups gives a markedly denser loaf and wants a little more liquid; replacing half of it changes the flavour without costing much rise.
Raisins appear in this booklet as something an ordinary household can afford by the cupful, which had not always been true. Most of what Americans baked with by then came from California, where raisin growing had become a large industry supplying the whole country cheaply. That abundance is what allows a yeast company to print a loaf carrying a cup of fruit and three-quarters of a cup of sugar and to call it queen quality among breads, a line that says as much about the booklet’s manner as about the bread. The remark that it makes good toast is the practical part of the page: a sweet loaf is improved by toasting as it stales, and that is how most raisin bread was actually eaten.