whole wheat raisin bread (vegan)

I've been wanting to tell you all about the amazing, delicious loaf of whole wheat raisin bread I made this week. It's from 1,000 Vegan Recipes.

It makes the BEST toast when sliced with a very good bread knife, very thin. This is the day after it comes out of the oven. The night it came out of the oven we ate huge slices of it slathered with vegan butter (and mine had also honey on top!).

seriously. make this. follow the directions exactly.

anyone have tips to keep fresh bread relatively soft? i stuck mine in a cloth reusable bag ... but maybe there's a better way?

anyway, here it is (and you should get this cookbook, it's really amazing):

3 tbsp molasses
1 package or 2 1/2 teasp. active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm plain soy milk (I used cold almond milk and didn't notice a difference)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins

combine the molasses and yeast. add 1/4 cup of the milk and stir until yeast is dissolved. set aside.

in another bowl, combine wheat flour, all purpose flour, salt, cinnamon, and raisins. add the yeast mixture and the remaining 1 1/4 cups milk, stirring to form a soft dough

knead the dough for five minutes (set your oven timer), then place in a lightly oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat with oil. cover with a clean dish towel and let rise in a warm place for one hour till doubled in size (i put mine in a stainless steel bowl right in an oven heated to 200 degrees for a while then turned off).

test dough by poking it with your finger. it's ready if the indentation from your finger remains.

lightly oil at 9-in. loaf pan, set aside. punch dough down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. shape the dough into a loaf, place it in loaf pan. cover with a dish towel and let rise in warm place (yes, warm oven again) for one hour.

preheat oven to 350 deg. F ... uncover dough, bake for 45 minutes -- 25 of them uncovered, the last 20 loosely covered with foil.

remove loaf from oven and set aside to cool for five minutes (very, very hard!!), then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool for 30 min. before slicing with a good bread knife (torture!!)

enjoy!! the toast this makes next day is out of this world.

In other news, I've been offered a job as the aftercare teacher for a Montessori daycare five minutes' WALK from my house, for three hours each late afternoon. This will still allow me the space to experiment with running my own business from home. Tomorrow I also have an interview at a coffeeshop. Things are shaping up.

So is the apartment ... 99 percent of the boxes have been unpacked and most stuff has found a home. Just the painting is left, along with a few extra items of furniture we need to thrift around for!

hope your week is going well.

love and light,

k.