I always picture this bread in Gramma’s kitchen. It has a divine aroma and tastes divine when toasted, especially when homemade applesauce is sprinkled on top! This will become a household favorite thanks to the pungent fennel seeds and ripe, sweet raisins.
| Prep Time: | 3 hrs |
| Cook Time: | 45 mins |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs 45 mins |
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 4 1-pound loaves |
Ingredients
- 2 (.25 ounce) packages instant yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 1 quart warm water
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- ½ cup fennel seed
- ⅓ cup unsulfured molasses
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 2 cups rye flour
- 1 ½ cups golden raisins
- 9 cups bread flour
Instructions
- In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of lukewarm water. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl, stir together the quart of warm water, salt, ginger, sugar, fennel, molasses, and melted butter. Mix in the yeast slurry and rye flour, breaking up any lumps of flour with a whisk. Stir in raisins. Work in the bread flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough becomes stiff.
- Then, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead in as much of the remaining flour as necessary to make a stiff but workable dough. Knead for an additional 10 minutes to develop the gluten. Place dough into a greased bowl, and turn to coat. Cover and let rise until double, about 1 hour. Punch down the dough and let it rise again until double.
- Remove dough from bowl, and divide into 4 equal pieces. press out air bubbles, and roll dough into loaves. Place the loaves into four 8×4 inch well greased loaf pans. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake the loaves for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the tops are nicely browned, and the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 91 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 21 g |
| Cholesterol | 1 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Saturated Fat | 0 g |
| Sodium | 301 mg |
| Sugars | 10 g |
| Fat | 1 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I only used half the recipe and the only change I made was dark raisins in place of golden, so I stayed pretty true to the recipe and I was disappointed. There is too much water and as a result I needed to use 5 3/4 cups of bread flour to even come close to a kneadable dough, which meant the ratio of fennel was off. Then The tops of the loaves were getting too dark, but the inside wasn’t fully baked even though I turned the oven down to 325, so I am hoping I didn’t burn out the motor of my mixer and that this toasts up well.
I really like this bread. I baked it for about 55 minutes and it turned out well. I didn’t add raisins bc half of the dough was made into a pastrami experiment (I halved the recipe to make 2 loaves), and I didn’t think pastrami and raisins went well together. I also used my bread machine to mix the dough since I’m lazy like that. I really like the end result, but I had to tinker a bit with the amount of water. It wasn’t quite enough at first, so the dough wasn’t mixing. I added about 1/4 c of water. The dough was a bit sticky at the end bc I accidently added more water than I meant to, but it worked well enough. I think this bread needs an egg wash; it doesn’t come out golden brown at all; just sort of a light tan color that isn’t that pretty. Aside from that, though, I really like the bread. Fennel is one of my favorite flavors, though–if you don’t like it, don’t bother. Thank you for the recipe! Worth trying again!