Ma Niche : Brown Sugar-Raisin Bread

Food gawker and Taste-spotting are pretty addictive... don't you think ? Once your first photograph gets accepted you want all your food photographs to appear there. One.It invites traffic. Two. It is strangely satisfying to know that a group of experts consider your food to be as gawk-worthy as you thought it was... But with that first acceptance comes the next stage in a bloggers life .. the big chase... the one that sets a blogger running from one window to another for that perfect streak of light. The frustration grows when the sun refuses to budge and finally the blogger has to settle for less. It was like that for me yesterday. It was raining cats and dogs and I just could not manage a well-lit-gawk-worthy shot... frustrated, I called up mom and she reminded me of this Brown Sugar-Raisin Bread.....

Back in October, I had baked this loaf along with Joyce, Lena and Zoe. It turned out great. Pretty. Soft and fluffy. We loved it. So I made a second loaf for my sister. Her in-laws were visiting at that time and they were pretty impressed by it. Her mother-in-law immediately took the recipe from me and in one of the recent family gatherings told my mother what a good baker I had become :) It felt good to be complimented by an ace baker as her.. so I thought it wouldn't be such a bad idea to publish this recipe even though the photographs aren't so great....

Now the recipe that won me praise.... Brown Sugar-Raisin Bread... a bread that is great for gifting, or sharing at festive breakfasts or brunch. The original recipe is from Wiiliam-Sonoma. I tweaked it to bake an eggless loaf.

Brown Sugar-Raisin Bread (Bread Machine)

Recipe adapted from William-Sonoma

Prep time: 2 hour 25-minutes to 3 hours Cook time: 35-40 minutes
Total time: 2 hour 50 minutes to 3 hour 40 minutes Yield: 9x5 inch loaf

Ingredients

1/2 cup warm milk
1/2+1/8 cup warm water
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup yogurt
pinch of baking soda
3 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp bread machine yeast or active dry yeast
3/4 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2-1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Cooking Directions

Put all the ingredients except the raisins in the bread machine pan in the order specified by the manufacturer and program it to the dough cycle.
15 minutes down the line, when the dough comes together, add the raisins and let the dough cycle complete.
Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan and kept it aside.
When the machine beeps at the end of the cycle, turn the prepared dough into lightly floured surface and roll it out to a 8x12 inch rectangle.
Mix the light brown sugar and ground cinnamon and sprinkle the mixture over the rolled out dough, leaving 1 inch border on all sides.
Beginning at the narrow end tightly roll up the rectangle to form a compact log.
Pinch the ends and the long seam to seal in the filling.
Place the log seam side down in a prepared pan.
Loosely cover with a plastic wrap and let rise until doubled. My loaf poofed up in 45 minutes but it might take up to 1-1/2 hours, so keep a watch.
Preheat oven to 350 degress F.
Once the loaf has poofed, bake it in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes until the loaf pulls away from the sides of the pan and is golden brown on top.
Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before slicing.