I made another loaf of my orange-raisin bread and refined my working recipe a bit, adding weights and some specifics on the marmalade step.

My working recipe is now as follows:

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Orange Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

about 200g of Home-made marmalade, made (see procedure below) from

about 200g = 1 smallish seedless navel orange and

100g = 1/2 cup granulated white sugar

~8g = 1 tablespoon SAF "red" instant yeast

~9g = 1.5 teaspoon salt

100g of raisins

450g unbleached bread flour

300g very warm water

Procedure
Quarter the orange and cut each quarter into 1/4-inch thick slices.  In small saucepan stir orange pieces up with the sugar to draw juice from pulp.  Heat mixture to boiling and stir while boiling until juice/sugar syrup does not drain from peel when pushed to one side of pan.  Cut peels up  as desired with table knife.

Put marmalade and all dry ingredients in mixing bowl, add the very warm water, and mix thoroughly.  Dough will be very soft and sticky, too much so to knead by hand.  If necessary it can be spoon-kneaded in the mixing bowl to make the fruit distribution roughly uniform.

Transfer dough to a pan with a scraper and let rise.  This dough will rise to fill a 9"x4"x4"-inch pullman pan in less than hour.

Bake at 450F for 25 minutes.  Result is a moist, sweet, chewy bread with ample fruit.

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Illustrative photos are as follows:

Orange quartered and sliced^

Marmalade, hot, before reduction (note syrupy free-flowing juice)^

Marmalade after reduction (no free-flowing syrupy juice, peel has been cut a bit with knife)^

Dough unrisen in pan^

Dough after 55 minutes rise time^

Loaf and pan after baking^

This is my first golden raisin bread. I used Bread flour for both Whole wheat and White. I handeled the dough more than i should, and thus deflated it considerably. The house smelled of Raisins! Really nice bread, and i bet it would taste better toasted.

All in all, i like it! But i think it should taste better if yeast is left out.

My paternal grandmother grew up in what is now southern Poland and at the time, governed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On Saturdays, our large family would gather at her house where we would devour loaves of her raisin bread. The loaves were large, at least 2 lbs or more, with a thick, dark caramelized crust and a golden yellow crumb with raisins. This was a substantial bread and she often served it with home made butter.

As far as I know, no one in the family is making this bread or at least talking about making it so the availability of recipe is questionable. I don't have the Polish name for the bread yet. However, I'll be retiring in a couple of weeks so I'll have the time to take a shot at baking it soon. Perhaps someone in the Chicago, IL or Springfield, MA area has an idea of what I'm looking for.

I wanted to try one of Dan's breads for Mother's Day and thought his Double Raisin Bread with Toasted Walnuts sounded delightful!

Dan gives several options for making it: as a straight dough, as a pain au levain, and as a pain au levain with a little added yeast. I chose to make the bread without the addition of any yeast.

Early yesterday morning I created a liquid levain from my stiff levain on the thought that it would take about 12 hours to fully ripen. At 8 hours I could see that it was just starting to recede, so I went into to action thinking I would have enough time to complete the bread before going to bed. (Just to clarify, I had planned to make the liquid levain in the AM and refresh it in the PM for use today, but when I saw it was proceeding faster than I expected, I just went for it.)

Results: I didn't get any oven spring but I think that was because I let them proof too long in the pans and I didn't have the oven hot enough (see below). The crumb is slightly wet, but pretty open. The flavor is quite delicious. This is the best raisin walnut bread I've ever had. I especially like it because it doesn't have a sugary or cinnamon flavor to it, just the pure pain au levain taste mixed with the natural sweetness of the raisins and nutty walnut flavor. I would definitely make this bread again. It is a real winner.

I'm hoping Dan will critique my method below. Dan's book, like Suas', is a big jump for me. But I figure if I don't try to learn to use this type of book, that I will never make real progress, and I really want to understand what I am doing so I will be able to develop my own recipes some day. I have given a detailed description below of how I understood Dan's method. Dan: you won't hurt my feelings so please don't hold back on any comments! Many of us will benefit from what ever you have to say.

From: Bread Baking: An Artisan's Perspective

Liquid levain:

133 g bread flour

133 g water

67 g ripe levain (I used about 60 g of my stiff levain and added a little more water to get to the total of 333 g)

Final dough:

467 g bread flour (I used KA bread flour)

67 g whole wheat flour (I used some I had ground about 30 hours before)

347 g water

13 g salt

167 g dark raisins (I pumped the raisins with warm water, but drained them before incorporating)

167 g golden raisins

167 g toasted walnut halves

266g of the liquid levain at the peak of ripeness

My interpretation of Dan's method:

1. Mix the levain and the water together with the paddle attachment on speed 1 until the levain is well incorporated, about 1 minute.

2. Add the bread and whole wheat flours, and the salt. Mix with the paddle attachment on speed 1 until everything is combined, about 1 minute.

3. Let dough hydrate with mixer off, about 5 minutes.

4. Resume mixing with dough hook on speed 2 until dough reaches improved mix stage (window pane forms but breaks when stretched), about 5 minutes. I had to add a small amount of additional flour, approximately 1/4 cup, to get the dough to sit right on my dough hook.

5. Reduce to speed 1 and add in the nuts being careful not to break them up too much.

6. Fold in the raisins with a kidney shaped bowl scraper. Dan warned me to be careful not to cut the raisins because they are high in calcium propinate, which is a yeast retardant.

7. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover and let bulk ferment at room temperature for 30 minutes.

8. Do one stretch and fold, return to covered bowl, and continue to bulk ferment until dough doubles. (Although the dough was a little sticky after one stretch and fold, it seemed to have good strength so I only did one. I thought bulk fermentation would take about 3 hours--my kitchen was about 74º--but it took more like 5 1/2 hours).

9. Preshape the dough into two balls and let rest under plastic for 30 minutes. (The dough was difficult to preshape because it was loose/wet/a little sticky--not sure what the remedy was here, but I floured my hands and the board in an attempt to make it easier to shape.)

10. Shape into two loaves and place in 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch oiled bread pans. Cover with plastic and let proof until about 1 1/2 times. (It was now 10:30 PM and I didn't achieve very good surface tension.)

11. Bake in a preheated 375º oven for 55 minutes. (I think the oven should have been hotter because the loaves didn't brown as much as I thought they should. Also, I didn't get any oven spring, but that was probably my fault because I think I let them almost double in the pan--of course in my defense I had gone to bed. I got up at 2 AM to turn the oven on and again at 3:15 AM to put them in. By that time they were doming the pans and were probably more like double.)

--Pamela

My favorite buns.

Cut the top with scissors and put butter and sugar.  Yummy!  I used Swedish Pearl Sugar that I bought at IKEA.  It's crunchy and sweet!

I usually only have time to make our favourite sourdough each weekend, but this weekend we have had rain and cold winds which cancelled some plans.  So I decided to make a recipe I hadn't tried before -Golden Raisin Bread - from Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread".  This took me out of my comfort zone somewhat but I enjoyed the challenge and will try to take on a new recipe regularly.  I think I've grown in confidence thanks to this site.

I was very pleased with the result.  I experimented with the scoring pattern between the two loaves and also made them in a pan rather than free form batards.  The taste was very nice and sweeter than I expected.  The crumb is denser than my usual Vermont Sourdough, but I guess it's the type of loaf.  Couldn't wait until it was completely cool before I tucked in....

Edit - I forgot to add that this was made using my new two week old starter (Debra Wink version).

Here's what not to do with Jeffrey Hamelman's lovely Golden Raisin Bread:

1. forget to do the 2nd build on the levain
2. and not notice you forgot until too late.

A testament to this bread is that even missing 2 oz. of flour and 3 oz. of water, it is delicious! The crumb is a little coarser than usual, but the flavour and texture are fine. Well, the texture's not so great where the crust bubbled out, but elsewhere is fine.

I was doing six things at once last night, and one of them was supposed to be adding the 2nd and final feed to the levain. That is, after I transferred it to another bowl because I needed that one for something else. Never got back to it after the transfer. When I saw it sitting there later, just thought I forgot to cover it. I wondered why the levain looked a little limp at the 16 hour mark today. And why the dough was slacker than usual. And why the final dough weighed 5 oz. less than it should. Studied the formula. Dredged up the memories. Now I know. <sigh>

If confession is good for the soul, I guess I go to bed spiritually uplifted. Ready to bake another day.

Carol

I was wandering around in here the other day and saw what looked to be great looking raisin bread on Floydm's pages.

Yesterday I made the Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Swirl Bread from Peter Reinharts The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I have to say, that was the best bread I have ever tasted. It was so packed with raisins and nuts! I'm definitily going to make this again. Both loaves were gone before the end of the night and my family still wanted more. I feel bad for my sister who only got 2 slices....I think I had 5!

Me, dividing the dough: 

Last night, I was making a batch of whole wheat raisin-walnut cinnamon bread. I've been pleased with how the no pre-heat worked with my sourdough sandwich bread, so I naturally tried with this bread as well.