My brother-in-law and his daughter went for a holiday in China and visited a vineyard where the grower had sun dried his grapes to form raisins. They gifted me with a packet of raisins resulting in me baking a raisin loaf for my breakfast. The loaf was soft and slightly sweet. The raisins were crunchy when I bit into them.
Ingredients:
- 200 ml warm milk
- 200 ml warm water
- 50 g sugar
- 8 g yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 100 ml melted butter (I use salted butter. Add 1 tsp salt if you are using unsalted.)
- 700 g bread flour
- 100 g raisins
Instructions:
- Activate the yeast:
- Add warm milk to a bowl.
- Add warm water to the bowl
- Add sugar to the bowl.
- Add instant yeast to the bowl.
- Stir and wait for 5-10 minutes for bubbles to be formed.
- Once the yeast has been activated, add salt, egg, melted butter and bread flour to the bowl.
- Knead till window pane is achieved.
- Grease a clean bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover the bowl with a cling wrap.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer it to your counter top.
- Punch down the dough to degas.
- Form the dough into a ball.
- Roll out into a rectangular dough.
- Spread raisins evenly across the dough.
- Roll up the dough and divide into 3 parts of equal weight.
- Take each part and roll into a long roll.
- Braid the 3 long rolls.
- Place the braided dough into a 9 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch pan which has been greased and lined with parchment paper.
- Cover the pan and let the dough to double in size.
- Meanwhile pre-heat your oven to 180 deg C.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, egg wash them.
- Bake them for 30 minutes. (Tent your pan with aluminium foil if your oven is too hot and the top of the loaf is turning dark too soon.)
- When baked, remove the loaf from the pan immediately and transfer it to a metal rack to let it cool down. Only then you may slice the loaf.
- Enjoy.
