A Year in Bread is one of my favorite baking blogs, which, unfortunately, is soon coming to an end after a year of innovative and exciting collaboration between three great food bloggers (Susan at Foodie Farmgirl, Beth at Kitchen Mage and Kevin at Seriously Good). Regular readers will remember me raving about the Grape Focaccia that Kevin posted on this blog. So its not surprising that I turned to A Year in Bread for yet another rosemary and grape infused recipe, except in this case it was a Italian Rosemary and Raisin bread that knocked my socks off.
Doesn't it look yummy? One of my loaves (the one depicted above) rose quicker than the other one, so by the time I slashed it and stuck it in the oven it had risen just a little too much and so fell instead of puffing outward like Susan's. But it was scrumptious regardless. I tagged this bread under my breakfast series because it is fantastic toasted with goat cheese and jam smeared all over it. Or plain. Or with lots of butter. Or...well, you get the idea. Susan suggests french toast, but I think mine will be long gone before weekend brunch-time rolls around.
I highly encourage everyone to try out this bread. Its a pretty simple recipe, and if you are squeezed for time you can put the dough in the fridge overnight with no ill effects. I personally did just that after forming the loaves and then baked them the next night. You could also stick the dough in the fridge after the kneading and shape and bake them the next day if you desire. I also made a couple of other changes-the main one was replacing 3 of the four eggs called for with organic egg whites. This significantly reduced the calories and cholesterol count per slice, and the bread still tasted great so I didn't see any negative effects. I also slightly reduced the salt and increased the amount of rosemary to get a more robust flavour. You can get the recipe at A Year in Bread: Italian Rosemary Raisin Bread. I definitely recommend giving it a try.
Labels: Bread, Breakfast Series, Vegetarian
