Raisin Bread Braided With a Twist Recipe

For many years now I have been making this bread around Easter time. It was a challenge to make the first time that I made it, as I was not sure how it would turn out. Braiding bread just seemed like it may be hard to do but in the end I found it was not as difficult as I had anticipated.

When making bread or any new recipe for the first time I always put out all of the ingredients that I will need. I tend to read the recipe about 3 or 4 times to make sure that I follow the instructions to the “T”. I learned to this after making a few blunders.

2 tsp sugar

½ cup warm water

1 tbsp of dry active yeast or 1 package

3 cups of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¼ cup of honey

2 eggs beaten

2 egg yolks

¼ cup of oil or butter or margarine melted

¾ cup raisins

For brushing the bread before you put into the oven

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp of water

1 tsp of sesame seeds

Add sugar and warm water into a small bowl dissolving sugar. Add yeast and let stand for about 8 – 10 minutes until frothy.

In a large bowl mix flour and salt together. Stir in yeast mixture, eggs, egg yolks and oil, margarine or butter and honey. Mix together until dough forms. Sprinkle some flour on your counter top or breadboard. Turn the dough onto the flour and knead for ten minutes adding up to ½ cup more flour until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Grease a large bowl and put the dough into it turning over so that it is coated. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise for approximately one hour and doubled in size. To check to see if dough is ready press a finger into the dough. If there is an indent that stays you are good to go with the next step.

Punch your dough down and kneed in the raisins. Set aside for ten minutes.

Grease a large cookie sheet. Take your dough and divide into 4 equal sections. You are going to be making 4 - 18” ropes with the dough. Roll the dough until it is 18” long. I roll it onto the counter top using my hands to roll it then give it a bit of a stretch and roll again. Once you have all 4 ropes made place them side by side onto your cookie sheet and pinch the 4 together at one end. To braid the ropes move the second rope on the left over the rope to the right of it. The far right rope goes over the 2 ropes on the left. Move the left rope over the 2 ropes on the right. Keep repeating this process until the end and tuck the ends under the braid. Loosely cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel and let rise for another hour.

Preheat your oven with rack in middle position to 350° F.

Brush the bread with the egg yolk water mix.Sprinkle with sesame seeds and pop in the oven for about 25 – 30 min. Bread should be golden brown and when tapped on the top sound hollow. Place on a rack to cool.

Depending on how hot your oven gets, your bread may take up to 40 minutes to bake. My oven gets super hot and only will take 25 minutes to bake at 350°. Check the bread and don’t rely on a timer, like I have in the past.