Some food, some drink.

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Abstract:

Whether you swear by a bread machine, or merely semi-automate with a stand mixer, you absolutely need to try this cinnamon raisin bread recipe, courtesy of Stafford County Flour Mills. Every batch produces a big ol' loaf of soft, golden-brown cinnamony goodness with jam-textured raisins in every bite. It's simply sacrilege to make a peanut butter sandwich with anything else.

Purpose:

Though my significant other would beg to differ, I'm not one to keep piles of cookbooks. I have a few standards that are dog-eared, and of course those community cookbooks are always great to flip thru as they also stand apart from the recipes they contain as pieces of cultural history. I like a recipe with a history. I like recipes that mean something to people. I also like ass-random recipes off the backs of packages.

Sometimes, when I know I want to cook, but don't know what to cook, I spin the wheel of chance and peruse the packaging of whatever ingredient I happen to have in my mitts as I look for inspiration. On one such occasion, as I was putting a five-pound bag of Hudson Cream bread flour into my shopping cart, I spied a recipe for cinnamon raisin bread. It took a second to process the title of what I had just read, and after turning the sack right-side up, I read the recipe for as long as the four-year-old in the cart would let me. I could just about smell the bread as I read the recipe; I had to make this loaf. But first, as I didn't feel like unearthing an almost-never used (anymore) appliance from the catacombs, I'd need to undo the bread machine method for the recipe as wrote.

Observation:

• The raisin soak is mandatory. As a raisin is filled with sugar which makes said fruit hygroscopic, the pre-soak ensures that the fruit doesn't suck moisture out of the loaf. Just to be certain the raisin's had plenty to drink, I like to hedge my bets and take the raisin soak for a short trip in the microwave.
• If you really wanna turn the aroma up to eleven, grind your cinnamon fresh. Nine times outta ten, a cheap cinnamon freshly-ground beats the hell out of an expensive bottle of the pre-ground stuff.
• As it comes together, this dough is pretty loose. Don't sweat it. By my reckoning, the whole reason they use bread flour in this recipe is for the extra gluten, which provides a bit more structure to an otherwise wet and sticky mess.  ... and well, whadayaknow? At a time when it's trendy to be hatin' on gluten, it can still play the good-guy.
• While we're on the subject of a wet and sticky dough, you'll need a fair amount of flour on the bench to handle this dough. If it sticks, just add more flour to whatever surface the dough sticks to.
• I'm not a savvy enough baker to figure out on my own that rolling the raisins into the dough ensures plenty of raisins in every slice. It's actually one of many dough-handling tricks I picked up from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (just a swell book for a novice baker, really).
• If you're gonna bake your own bread you're gonna need the next first best thing to sliced bread. It needs to be better than ten inches and serrated.

Results:

While talking to the good folks at the Stafford Mills to get the blessing to share this with y'all, I got the impression that the folks at the mill were quite proud of this particular recipe, and they had every reason to be: It makes an absolutely splendid loaf of bread. I slice mine from the loaf as I need to use it, otherwise I invariably find myself consuming every piece that hits the cutting board. On the day it's baked, the cinnamon is super-fragrant, the crumb is soft, and the nutty, brown crust is just firm enough to contain it all. Butter is totally optional. Over the next couple of days, I'm quite sure I had the best peanut butter and banana sandwich ever; and all the while I was looking for excuses to have toast with every meal. Bread machine, or stand mixer: either way you wanna put it together, Al's Cinnamon Raisin Bread is just tops.

With my living in The Wheat State and all, it'd be a damn shame not to be able to get decent flour. There aren't too many products that I can pick up at the supermarket knowing full well that the bag-in-hand finished product only had to travel an hour and forty-five minutes to get there. That said, I'm sure the folks at the Stafford Mills wouldn't mind if your particular bag had to travel a bit further (it's worth it).

Gallery:

Some of my favorite recipes aren't from cookbooks. This one is from the back of the Hudsom Cream Bread Flour bag.

Some of my favorite recipes aren't from cookbooks. This one is from the back of the Hudsom Cream Bread Flour bag.

The toughest part of getting used to working with an enriched dough is the idea that amorphous and sticky is good. Resist the temptation to keep adding…

The toughest part of getting used to working with an enriched dough is the idea that amorphous and sticky is good. Resist the temptation to keep adding flour.

And you thought it was impossible to get a raisin to look any uglier. It's all good; the extra water added to them here is so it doesn't suck H2O out of…

And you thought it was impossible to get a raisin to look any uglier. It's all good; the extra water added to them here is so it doesn't suck H2O out of your bread.

I like rolling-in my raisins to ensure every fruit is properly placed (I have control issues).

I like rolling-in my raisins to ensure every fruit is properly placed (I have control issues).

After rolling up the raisin mat, you'll need to tuck under the open ends toward the seam and place the whole mess seam-side down in the pan.

After rolling up the raisin mat, you'll need to tuck under the open ends toward the seam and place the whole mess seam-side down in the pan.

This is the lift you can get from an extra 30-minute pause before you bake. You've waited this long, so don't skip the second rise unless you like tough,…

This is the lift you can get from an extra 30-minute pause before you bake. You've waited this long, so don't skip the second rise unless you like tough, chewy bread.

Cinnamon raisin bread that's just fifteen minutes out of the oven: Warm, buttered, and golden brown. You can slice now if you just can't wait any longer.

Cinnamon raisin bread that's just fifteen minutes out of the oven: Warm, buttered, and golden brown. You can slice now if you just can't wait any longer.

Cut yourself a generous slice of Al's Cinnamon Raisin Bread and consume voraciously. Or better yet, cut that slice a friend and grab a jar of extra-chunky…

Cut yourself a generous slice of Al's Cinnamon Raisin Bread and consume voraciously. Or better yet, cut that slice a friend and grab a jar of extra-chunky peanut butter.