Now to have a little fun! As you remember yesterday we left our dough rising and our kids doing the dishes...
If you are adding raisins your little gems should be nice and plump by now and cooled off.
Your dough should have gone from this to...
This! It has doubled...which by the way you will have to be careful not to do once you try this bread!
Choose your favorite child to get to do this fun part...punching down the dough. What, you don't have a favorite child? Well then I guess you could draw straws to see who gets to do it!
As you can see Sweet Girl would rather gently pat it down as to punch it, I on the other hand give it a good punch in the gut to deflate it...then again I am not nearly as sweet and feminine as she. How sweet can I be, I own a camel for goodness sake...but I digress...
Here is where the artist in you will kick in...you get to mold, shape and otherwise form the dough into whatever form you wish it to take. Above are dinner rolls...not your sweet flaky delicate dinner rolls , but hearty, big, you could make a sandwich out of them, dinner rolls.
Now the best part, remember those plump little raisins? Yes it is time for them to jump in with the dough....bread dough and raisins just love each other!
Just in case you are a by the recipe type of baker and are wondering how many raisins I put in my bread...sorry I just don't know exactly. We eat them as we make the bread, we purposely leave some in the post to eat after. I just know that it is an obscene amount of raisins. Seriously it is almost like a raisin party wrapped inside some bread dough. Anyway throw in as many well drained raisins as your little raisin lovin' hear desires.
Then get out your cinnamon and do a couple of big shakes, then twirl around and do a few more...that probably isn't quite enough so close your eyes and sprinkle some more! Nothing is more annoying than raisins cinnamon bread that you can't taste the cinnamon...OK there are more annoying things but you get where I'm going with this. So don't be stingy with either the raisins or cinnamon, stingy bakers are just not fun for anyone!
Mixing this is almost laughable it is so hard. I've tried it in the machine, tried it with a spoon, but found the only way to incorporate that many raisins is by hand. I put them in, fold the dough over, poke the stragglers back in and repeat. I do this until all the raisins are hidden in the dough... or I get so annoyed I eat the ones on the outside that are poking out...problem solved. Please don't leave any on the outside or they will become little charcoal raisins that your kids will make funny icky faces at and then proceed to spit out...yuck!
Oops! I missed one, oh well, guess I'm gonna have to eat it!
Here is what a loaf of my raisin cinnamon bread looks like at the beginning of the second rising. .. which is not to be confused with the second coming which is in far better hand than my own. Do you know how many times bread is referenced in the Bible? Over 400 according to my concordance...wow that is a lot of bread. Anyway I digress...again,
Here is a loaf of plain old Whole Wheat bread, all nice and smooth...and boring!
Put it somewhere warm to rise again until doubled...

If I could make my blog smell for you I would cause darn it if this all doesn't just smell like heaven in a pan!
Fresh from the oven glistening in their mantel of butter hot dinner rolls...
and any one of you that notices my dirty kitchen windows will be banished for life!
Just kidding, instead you will be cordially invited over to help clean them, I'll provide the snacks!
I always put butter on the top of my hot from the oven bread, it makes it look all pretty and my folks always did it so, so I do too, guess that is reason enough!
Update: since becoming vegan this has changed to an organic vegan margarine but either is great!
The lumpy, bumpy full of yummy goodness raisin cinnamon bread! Anyone notice that I play favorites with my bread?
I hope you all enjoyed making bread with me. Although is is one of the more time consuming thing you can do in the kitchen it is also just about the most rewarding and certainly among the most delicious!
Oh yeah this recipe made all those dinner rolls,a loaf of plain bread and two loaves of raisin bread along with two itty bitty loaves that the kiddos made. I know that is not exact but those of you who know me would not expect it to be!!!
To answer the ?'s from ang at St. Fairsted Farm...yes it freezes very well! In fact I betcha my rolls would be way too yummy with her bean soup!