Rosemary Raisin Bread

I got this recipe from a bread book my dad bought me a few years ago; it remains my favorite bread book, for at least three reasons:

1. there are lots of big, pretty pictures of bread.  It's like bakery porn in there, without the lingering suspicions of spoons and syrups.
2. the recipes don't even start until page 71, because everything up to that point is lurid descriptions of ingredients, methods, tools, and processes involved in making bread.  For someone whose background is in engineering (and who maintains a ravening curiosity of How Food Works), it's fascinating stuff.  This book remains the only cookbook I've ever just sat down and read.
3. this is the book that taught me how to bake bread.  It took me a while, but I got there.  It also has three vital recipes: bagels (which I've since memorized from making them so often), cheesy sexy bread (not what the book calls it, but more fitting), and the basic bread I use as a base formula when making pepperoni rolls (also memorized)

It's a good thing I don't need to add any more ingredients, because that bowl is FULL.

You have to be careful not to add too much liquid to bread dough.  This mess looks too dry, but if you squish your fingers in there a little, you'll feel otherwise.  This is when I stopped stirring and started kneading, and easily drew in the rest of the flour in the bowl.

However, since it's a recipe in a book, and not something I can just link to online, I don't really know how copyright protects it, so I'm not posting it here.  There is a chance that I may have to support myself at some point by convincing people to pay money for things I write, and it would really annoy me if some yahoo with a blog just put my stuff out there for free.  Trust me--if you want to start making bread, this is a good purchase.

before rising

after rising.  I know the aspect ratio has changed, but you can still see it's bigger, and the texture has smoothed out a little.

Suffice to say it's something that I had wanted to try for a while, but it called for powdered milk, which isn't something I usually have.  After I bought a big box of it for backpacking, I realized the opportunity was now, which worked out well since we also had a bunch of fresh rosemary waiting to find a good use.

After rising and chafing, form two round loafs and set them well apart on the baking sheet to proof.

After baking.  I assume they smelled good, too.

I did screw up a little, though: I forgot I was basically out of flour until I had already mixed wet and dry stuff together, so this batch was almost entirely whole-wheat flour.  Luckily, it still rose well and was very tasty.

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