Cinnamon Raisin Yeast Bread

I love what my bread-maker can do for me.

I mean, it may be lacking in many places, but it still does the job.

When it feels like it, that is.

The bread-maker I use is about ten years old. And, poor thing, its age is starting to show. The problems started a few months ago when I plugged in the bread maker only to have it start beeping in a panicked way. Then the numbers went backwards.

This problem can be fixed, I found, by turning the bread-maker on and off several times. If this doesn’t work, a good hard bang on the lid will bring its attitude under control.

Then the problems continued. A couple weeks ago, the first digit went out. Basically, when the bread-maker had two hours and fifty five minutes left, it only said fifty five minutes. Very confusing.

Then the second digit went out. Now I only have a five to tell me that there were two hours and fifty-five minutes left. When I want to set a time for the bread to cook, I have to rely on my counting skills.

“Four hours and ten minutes, four hours and twenty minutes, four hours and thirty minutes…”

And after a long day, my counting skills aren’t always great.

So then I have to start over, turning off my grumbling bread-maker and turning it back on again.

And therefore, here’s another recipe made with the reliable old bread-maker.

And it’s good.

CINNAMON RAISIN YEAST BREAD

Wet Ingredients:

3 large eggs

½ cup oil

1 cup milk

½ cup water

 

Dry Ingredients:

2 ½ cups rice flour or gluten free oat flour

1 cup potato starch

¾ cup sugar

2 tablespoons yeast

3 1/2  teaspoons xanthan gum

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ cup currants or raisins

 

Filling Ingredients

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ cup sugar

½ cup currants or raisins

½ cup (1 stick) butter, grated

 

Combine all the wet ingredients into the bread-maker pan and stir with a rubber spatula. Set aside.

Combine all the dry ingredients into a clean metal bowl. Hand-whisk until blended. Pour into the wet ingredients and stir with the rubber spatula. The ingredients do not have to be very well incorporated because the bread-maker will stir them thoroughly.

Place in the bread-maker. Select the ‘basic’ cycle. Press ‘start’, and let the bread-maker run until the kneading cycle is over. Then remove the bread from the bread-maker.

Place wax paper on the counter and sprinkle cornstarch over this.

Grease a bread pan, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and mix together the Filling Ingredients.

Roll the bread out with a rolling pin, making sure it is no wider than your bread pan.

Sprinkle the rolled-out bread with the filling ingredients.

Roll the bread up.

Flip the greased bread pan over and push it down on top of the bread. Turn the bread and bread-pan over, using the wax paper.

Peel the wax paper off and place the bread in the oven. Place a pan beneath it in case some of the butter melts off.

Cook for forty-five minutes to an hour, until firm in the middle and brown on top. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean.