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Raisin Bread
1 cake FLEISCHMANN'S YEAST 1 cup lukewarm water 1 cup milk, scalded and cooled 1 tablespoonful sugar 6 cups sifted flour 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 draft, until light-about one and one-half hours.
When well-risen, add raisins wellfloured, the rest of the flour, or enough to make a moderately soft dough, and the salt.
Knead lightly, or "throw and roll."
Place in 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 makes a delightful change.
Raisin Bread is delicious toasted.
A straightforward sponge-and-dough sweet bread, but the printed ingredient list is short of several things the method calls for. Read both together before you start.
- Missing quantitiesThe list gives yeast, water, milk, one tablespoon sugar and six cups flour, yet the method calls for lard or butter, more sugar, salt, raisins and an egg for the glaze. Typical proportions for this style of loaf are about 1/4 cup fat, 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 to 1 1/2 cups raisins.
- One yeast cakeFleischmann's compressed yeast was sold in more than one size; the small household cake is usually given as about 0.6 oz. As a substitute, use one packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast. If using instant, skip the dissolving step and mix it straight into the first two cups of flour.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, which was normal when ovens had no dial. Bake at 350F for the stated forty-five minutes; the loaves are done at an internal temperature of 190-200F and should sound hollow when tapped underneath.
- Flour the raisinsThis is the instruction that matters. Tossing raisins in flour keeps them suspended rather than sinking to the base and scorching, and stops them sticking together in a clump during kneading.
- Scalded milkScalding raw milk killed bacteria and is generally said to deactivate a milk protein that slackens dough. With pasteurised milk it is usually treated as unnecessary; simply warm it to lukewarm. Do not add it hot, or you will kill the yeast.
- "Throw and roll"The recipe's own phrase, apparently meaning to slap the dough down and fold it over rather than press with the heel of the hand, though the exact technique intended is not certain. Either way, handle this soft, fruited dough lightly.
- Pans half fullSix cups of flour gives two standard 9x5 inch loaves. Filling the pans halfway leaves room for the final hour's rise to bring the dough just above the rim.
- GlazeOne egg beaten with a tablespoon of water is plenty for two loaves. Brush it on after the final rise, gently, or the risen dough will deflate.
This comes from one of the promotional cookbooks the Fleischmann company circulated in the early twentieth century, when compressed fresh yeast was sold door to door and by the grocer's counter and the firm had a strong commercial interest in persuading young housewives to keep baking bread at home rather than buying it from a bakery. Hence the branded yeast in the ingredient line and the confident tone of the method. Raisin bread itself is much older than the pamphlet: dried-fruit breads run through European baking. The suggested swap to whole wheat or Graham flour reflects the lingering influence of Sylvester Graham's nineteenth-century advocacy of coarse-ground wheat, by then absorbed into ordinary home baking as simply a change of flavour.