Cookbook #74: America’s Bake-Off Cookbook, 29th, The Pillsbury Company, USA, 1980.

I think I bought this booklet. No writing in it at all.

Too many of the recipes call for pre-packaged refrigerated crescent rolls, hot roll mix, or cake mixes. From the few that are from scratch, I noted two to copy to try in the future and one to try for this blog. But, after that, America’s Bake-Off Cookbook, 29th, will go into the recycle pile.

I chose to try “Glazed Oatmeal Raisin Bread”. The oatmeal, raisins, low amount of shortening, inclusion of molasses, and low amount of sugar qualify this as “fit for breakfast” (see this blog post).

Hey, this 1980 Bake-Off Cookbook includes nutritional information! I don’t remember any of the earlier ones doing that.

I used a third of the called-for ingredients to make just one loaf. Although I felt that boiling/soaking the raisins really wasn’t necessary, I went ahead and did it. I substituted some of the white flour with white wheat flour, and used whole oats (not quick cooking). I used my breadmaker to knead and rise the dough. Here is my baked loaf:

Note how huge the loaf is! That’s because of the wet raisins. Since I was using my breadmaker to knead the bread, I added the raisins about halfway through the kneading process. But with these soaked raisins came a lot of water, so I had to add about a cup more flour. Still, the baked loaf smelled good, and I looked forward to a toasted slice of this raisin bread in the morning. But this is what I got:

What happened to the raisins?? Oops, shouldn’t have added the raisins so early in the kneading process. The breadmaker ground them up into raisin meal.

Oh well. That’s how we learn.

But this bread is really good for toast. I munch in, and get this huge sweet taste of raisins, even though there are no visible raisins in it. It could be a mystery bread!