The Amazing Raisin Bread Challenge

I recently bought a box of golden rasins on a whim; they are my favorite type of raisin, but I don't really eat rasins a lot. So I was wondering what I could do with them (while eating some of course) and inspiration struck. Raisin bread. I searched Stumbleupon and came up with several recipes, all of which looked great. But the problem was that I couldn't pick which one to use first.

Enter the "Amaising Raisin Bread Challenge." I will be posting each recipe every week; and then I will make a loaf of the bread and post step-by-step photos along with the results to show how well the particular recipe worked for me. I will then do a taste test among my family and record their reactions on taste, texture, smell, and overall appearance. I will then post the results and, at the end of the challenge, the winners. you can do your own challenge and pick your own winner, or just try out the winning recipe.

My first recipe will be my all time favorite bread recipe (the one I make for just bread) and I will add the cinnamon sugar and raisins to it to make it into a raisin bread. This is, by far, the simplest bread recipe you could make, I found it in a children's cookbook, and a good place to start out.

Alright folks, here's the recipe, so let's get to work!

Bread

3 1/2 cup flour
1 package yeast
1 1/2 Tb butter or margarine
1 Tb brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup water

Cinnamon Raisin Filling
1 Tb melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins

Mix flour, yeast, brown sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Add the water and mix together to make a stiff dough. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic and then let rise for 40 minutes or until doubled in size. press the dough out into a rectangle and moisten with melted butter, sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar (mixed together) onto the dough and then spread the raisins onto the dough. roll the dough up, starting at a short end, and then tuck the ends under, pressing the edges to seal. Place into a loaf pan or onto a baking sheet or cooking stone and let rise again, until doubled. bake at 425 F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when knocked. You can eat the bread however you like; for toast, with butter, or just plain.

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here are the pics for almost all my recipes up to date.

Nutella Mug Cake

I love Stumbleupon, its where I find alot of cool recipes, like strawberry jello shooters that are in real strawberries, or cupcakes with flaming strawberries. I might make those, someday; but today I want to share my absolute favorite recipe that I found on stumble: the Nutella Mug Cake. It is an amazing cake that is made in a unique way that I had never thought of before, you microwave it, which gives it a nice rich, dense moistness. I added a half of a Hershey's Symphony bar, the kind with the nuts and toffee and that made it insanely good, but it was so huge (I used a big soup mug) that I could only eat half of it, but it was good the next day.

Nutella Mug Cake
Ingredients
4 tablespoons self rising flour
4 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons Nutella
3 tablespoons milk (I use almond milk of course)
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
Method
1. Combine all ingredients in a large coffee mug. Whisk well with a fork until smooth. Microwave on high for 1 1/2 – 3 minutes. (Time depends on microwave wattage. Mine took 1 /2 minutes.) Top with whipped cream and a little chocolate sauce if desired.
2. Top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Enjoy!

(it is a good idea to beat the egg before hand and to try mixing the ingredients together like you would a regular cake, mix the egg and sugar, then the rest of the wet ingredients, and then adding the dry ingredients. my first attempt failed miserably, there were cooked egg pieces in it and flour left sticking to the bottom; also, I used a large mug and the batter started running out of it, which is why I switched to the very large soup mug. Mine is a mammoth mug, I can fit a whole can of soup in it, with the water added.

this recipe is so good! my all time favorite recipe for cake ever. I am considering, however, in trying out some cake and pie "in a jar recipes" so that may change.

Nearly Cheeseless Pizza Calzones

There is nothing that I love more than homemade pizza. Except for homemade calzones. Individual sized pockets of pizza goodness brimming with sauce toppings... and, regretfully, cheese. Fortunately, when you make them yourself you can easily adjust the amount of cheese you put in each pocket. Just add more for the cheese lovers, and non lactose-intolerant members of your family, and less (or even none) for you.
I had made calzones before, sometimes with disaterous results: the small ones popped, the big ones took to long or burnt, and store bought dough mix just didn't work right. But, with a little tweaking, and the right dough recipe, these calzones taste amazing, even with hardly any cheese.

This dough recipe is from another old cookbook of my mother's, New and Easy Red Star Yeast Recipes copyright, 1974,1983

Pizza

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 package Red Star Instant Blend Dry Yeast (but any yeast will do)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons shortening

Oven 400 F

This recipe makes four twelve inch pizzas, but since you want the crust to be thick on the calzones, this recipe will make two calzones that you can use as individual servings or to share.

In medium mixing bowl, combine 1 cup flour, yeast, and salt; mix well. Add warm water (120-130 F) and shortening. mix by hand until almost smooth. Gradually stir in remaining flour to make a firm dough. Let rest 15 minutes (I had to add about 1/4 cup more flour because my dough was too sticky to work with. You want the dough to be firm, but still slightly sticky and stretchy.)

This is where we go off away from the recipe. After the dough rests, cut it in half and take one of the halves and flatten it out onto a CORNMEAL covered surface, coating your hands with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking. The cornmeal is key to a really great taste and is the secret to most resaurant doughs.

You want to get cornmeal on both sides of the dough and to stretch it out to roughly 7 or 8 inches wide and tall (I made the dough into a rectangle for ease of transfer). Pick up the dough by one side and place it on a baking sheet that has a lip to it and add the sauce (just a little bit, too much can cause leakage), cheese, toppings, and more cheese (if you desire)on half of the dough ; and then fold the other half over to completely cover the toppings and pinch down the sides, folding over and pinching again to seal.

Cut vents in the top for steam to escape (I use my trusty kitchen shears) and pop it into the oven to bake at 400 F for 25-30 minutes. you want the crust to be golden brown and to have a hollow sound when you tap on it.

Banana Bread

Warm and chewy, soft, sweet and fragrant; banana bread is a lactose-free dieter's dream dessert, and I'll tell you why: banana bread is not only a great comfort food and a really good use for brown bananas, it has no dairy in it whatsoever. Unless you put real butter in the mix of course.

My banana bread is wonderful, soft and almost flaky when warm, with a chewy denser texture after it has cooled. What's my secret? Margarine. About one fourth of the reccomended amount of fat called for (usually shortning) in the recipie of your choice, you subsitute with margarine. Do that and you will be in banana bread heaven, the margarine gives it a richness and it keeps me from slathering the stuff on it a half inch thick after it is done; which is by far worse than the small amount that I add to it.

To make this recipe even more decadent I spread it with my favorite sandwich topping: Nutella, giving a chocolate-banana feel. But I prefer to eat it plain.

With my recipe, the three close to black bananas that I had lying around made a loaf and six muffins, about a recipe and a half.

Banana Nut Bread (from the Better Homes and Gardens *New* Cookbook Copyright 1976)

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2 bananas)

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I left out the nuts, not just because I didn't have any, but because I wanted my one-year-old to be able to eat the bread too)

Cream together shortening and sugar; add eggs and beat well. Sift together dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with banana, blending well after each addition. Stir in nuts (or not).

Pour into well-greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 F) 45 to 50 minutes or till done (my loaf took the full 50, but the muffins took less time, about 35-40 minutes). Remove from pan; cool on rack. Wrap and store overnight.

I love looking at older recipes, especially ones that my mom collected from the sixties and seventies. It is interesting to note that baking soda is called just "soda" and a "moderate" oven was 350 degrees farenheight. Older recipes give insight into what was popular in the food world at those times and how important cooking was by how complicated the dishes they chose to prepare were.