Raisin Walnut Bread

Ellie and I had a great time making this bread (in part because we ground extra flour to play with), but it turned out... muy disappointing. The crust was soft and the bread bland. So I was pretty surprised at how delicious it was this morning when I toasted some for breakfast. I don't like very sweet things at breakfast so this nutty wheaty bread was perfect. It gets most of its sweetness from the raisins - the dough itself has only one teaspoon of sugar.


Raisin Walnut Bread
modified from deliaonline.com
I changed a couple of things from the original recipe, like toasting the walnuts and soaking the raisins and using less raisins, and substituting butter for the walnut oil because I don't have any walnut oil...

4 oz / 110 g walnuts
2 oz / 50 g raisins
2 oz / 50 g sultanas or golden raisins
5 oz / 150 g whole wheat flour (I used about 1 cup plus 2 T)
5 oz / 150 g all-purpose flour (I used about 1 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon walnut oil
7 oz / 200 ml water

• Coarsely chop walnuts and toast in an 350 degree oven until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
  
• In a small sauce pan, cover raisins with apple juice and heat until simmering. Remove from heat, soak until plump, and drain. Set aside.
• In a stand mixer combine the flours, yeast and salt. Set aside. (if you don't use saf yeast you might want to proof your yeast like you do with other recipes?)
• Heat water until it's hot-ish to the touch and stir in sugar and oil. Pour water mixture into flour mixture and combine. Knead with dough hook 5 minutes on medium high speed. Let rest for 10 minutes.
• Pat dough out into a rough 12 inch square and sprinkle with walnuts and raisins. Press into dough. Roll up jelly-roll style and knead lightly to incorporate nuts and fruit. (I just folded the roll in half and pressed and then folded it again and pressed). Work into a rough circle or oblong shape and place on a cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap or a large buttered bowl and allow to rise until double. (Yes, you only let it rise once - no punching down.) This will take a while to rise.
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 35 to 40 minutes. Then wait until breakfast for great toast or cheese toast!

I was lucky that this recipe had both metric and US measurements. When I'm not so lucky I use this great page from a guy who cracks me up: http://www.gumbopages.com/metric.html