Raisin Walnut Bread

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

We addRaisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Raisin Walnut Bread Ingredients | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Raisin Walnut Bread

3 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon instant or active dry yeast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup whole wheat flour

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (if you use King Arthur or other high protein flours, you may need to add up to a 1/4 cup more water)

1 cup raisins

1 cup walnuts

2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a 6-Quart Round Storage Container add the water, yeast, salt, flours

Adding raisins to bread dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

raisins

A bowl of raisins and walnuts | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

walnuts and cinnamon.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Mix with a Danish Dough Whisk, a wooden spoon or a stand mixer.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Let the dough rise for 2 hours and then you can use it right away or it can be stored for about 7 days.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Pull out a 2-pound piece of dough, about half the dough in the bucket.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Quickly shape it into a smooth oval.

Floured ceramic bread pan | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Generously grease and flour the base of the bread baker.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Place the dough into Bread Loaf Baker.

Bread Dough Baker | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Cover and let rest for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This will depend on what else you have going on and how chilly your kitchen is.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough Rising | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Uncover the loaf and use a Pastry Brush to paint with water.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Because this baker has a lid it traps the internal moisture of the dough, almost like a Dutch Oven, to create a shiny, crisp crust. Since it has the small holes, the crust will also color nicely during the baking without having to remove the cover.

Bake for about 45 minutes. If you open the lid and it is not yet golden brown, let it bake another 5 minutes.

Let the bread cool in the baker for 5 minutes

Raisin Walnut Bread Turned Out of a Bread Pan | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Turn the loaf out of the pan after 5 minutes and then let cool completely.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Breadin5 17

After you’ve enjoyed some of your bread you can slip it back into the baker to store it on the counter.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Since the cover has holes the loaf won’t get soggy, but it is protected enough to keep the bread from staling as quickly. It also happens to keep nosey puppies from the counter.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Here is the loaf baked in a regular loaf pan. You can see that the crust is pale and dull looking in comparison. It was still as tasty, but without the trapped steam the loaf just wasn’t as appealing. You’d have to add steam to the oven if you were to bake it in this style pan.

Lesaffre Yeast Corp. (Red Star) provided samples of yeast for recipe testing, and sponsors BreadIn5’s website and other promotional activities. Emile Henry provided bakeware and sponsorship.

Whole Grain Christmas Stollen

stollen-hbin5-3-of-16

Christmas Stollen is a wonderful German baking tradition this time of year. A sweet loaf that is studded with dried fruit, spiced with cardamom and a special treat of almond paste runs through it. Once it comes out of the oven it is traditional to slather the warm loaf in butter then roll it in sugar, but we skip the extra butter and dust it with a thick layer of confectioners’ sugar to look like the snow outside. This loaf actually holds up very well for a couple of days and that makes it a great gift for the holidays.
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Valentine’s Day Swirled Bread

Valentine Bread | Breadin5 (25 of 28)

I’ve just returned from an incredible week in Denver. I was there working with Craftsy to create another class, this time on show stopping cheesecakes (it will be out in a few weeks). I love working the with the Craftsy team. They work hard and laugh harder. We spent months developing the class concept, all the materials/recipes and then got together for 4 days of non-stop baking and filming. I like to think I’m a hard worker, but then I see the folks at Craftsy and I realize how much more a human can do in a single day when they work as a team. I loved it. Not only the work, but also the people. Writing books and blogging are two pretty solitary jobs, so having 5 days in the kitchen with their crew was a blast. It’s fun to watch other people create beautiful food. It is also fun to see my recipes come to life.

Valentine Bread | Breadin5 (26 of 28)

As we were prepping all the cheesecakes for my class, Victoria, the kitchen assistant extraordinaire, told me about a bread she bakes for her young daughter. Victoria helped me on my Craftsy bread class* and played with the recipe to create a rainbow of colors with it. Brilliant. I immediately thought of a Valentine’s Day Bread with swirls of pink and red.

Valentine Bread | Breadin5 (28 of 28)

*If you haven’t checked out our Artisan Bread in Minutes class on Craftsy, I am always so happy to have new bakers join the class. If you’re interested be sure to use this link to sign up, you’ll get $20 off. It makes a lovely Valentine’s Day Gift for the baker in your life.

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Braided Peasant Bread

Braided Peasant Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Braiding doesn’t just have to be for sweets. I found myself with some 2-week-old dough (truth be told it was closer to 3 weeks) and it was a little wet to shape a nice tall boule. We always recommend using older dough for flatbreads or baking it in a loaf pan, since it can lose some of its rising power in the later stages of storing. Well, it turns out this older dough makes a wonderful braided peasant bread loaf, with lots of flavor and a really open crumb. Because the braid isn’t as domed as a boule, the older dough has all the rising power it needs.

My dough was made with all-purpose flour, a bit of rye, whole wheat and Platinum yeast by Red Star. Like I said, it was almost 3 weeks old, but this technique can also be done with fresh dough and really any of our doughs, not just the Peasant dough recipe will work great. Read More

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This is Roberto, one of the luckiest people I have ever met. He and Mark, who run the test kitchen at Red Star Yeast, have what I consider a dream job. They work in this amazing kitchen to come up with all kinds of yeasty treats. The equipment is top notch, the ingredients limitless and the space is massive. I have kitchen envy in a big way. No wonder they are such fantastically nice guys. They were kind enough to invite Jeff and me into their kitchen to play with them. We baked all kinds of breads from our books and did presentations to the rest of the Red Star team. Read More