Bruce -
I make both raisin bread and date bread in my machine, and have certainly
experienced the problems you outline.
The way I have beaten the problem is to make sure the raisins or dates are
separated into individual piece (they often come out of the box pretty well
clumped together) and then put them in a bowl and dump about 1 tablespoon of
flour on them and make sure they are thoroughly coated in it. I then add the
fruit about 1/4 at a time when the machine (Regal) beeps, signaling it is
time to do so.
Sometimes they will still tend to clump up on the bottom, and I often resort
to "helping" the mixing along by hand while the machine is still running and
mixing. I make sure I don't get my fingers down toward the bottom of the
pan where the paddle is going around; have NO desire to give new meaning to
the term "finger food!". Usually manipulating the dough a bit, rolling it
over during the mixing results in a decent loaf. I almost always put nuts
in also, and I dust those with flour too; have never needed to add more
liquid to compensate.
Suspect our problem may be machine-specific. Don't know what yours is, but
mine as a 6 or 7 year old Regal which otherwise makes excellent bread. My
sister has a Zojirushi, and while she dusts her raisins with flour, she just
dumps them in and never has a problem with uniform mixing.
Hope this helps a little.
- - -
Bill Hatcher
Bill's Raceworld
Goodies for the NASCAR fan
http://www.vstore.com/vstorecar/billsraceworld/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bread-bakers-errors@lists.best.com
> [mailto:bread-bakers-errors@lists.best.com]
> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 1999 3:44 PM
> To: bread-bakers@lists.best.com
> Subject: Digest bread-bakers.v099.n047
>
>
>
> -------------- BEGIN bread-bakers.v099.n047 --------------
> From: "Bruce S. Haug" <bhaug@pclink.com>
> Subject: Raisin bread (any kind, raisin is problem)
> Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 23:20:08 -0500
>
>
> Have tried twice, first time inserted when bread machine "beep"
> for "adding
> fruit", this tasted good but you could not "see" any raisins. Second try
> was have machine do the mixing, rolled out dough, sprinkled with
> rasins, let
> final raise, baked in oven, all the raisins were together!.
>
> How do I get "store bought" raisin cinnamon bread?
>
> P.S. I usually have the bread machine mix, and bake loaf in
> regular pan in
> the oven.
>
> ********************************************
> Bruce S. Haug