Raisin Toast in Bed for Sunday Lunch

I may of made the dough, but he snuck out of bed 3 hours early to pull it out of the fridge — then snuck back out of bed to make the coffee and bake this raisin focaccia bread.

(Actually, it’s craisin, apricot, date focaccia bread because the cupboard wouldn’t cough up any raisins when I made the dough last week — but that’s a bit of a mouthful.)

Whatever you decide to put in it, just make it.  I challenge you to find a tastier loaf of raisin bread ANYWHERE.

Interested?  Prepare the foccacia bread recipe, and in the final 2 minutes of mixing, add 3 cups of raisins (the dough should be packed with them.)  Shape, pan and bake as described in the recipe, using plain olive oil (about 1/2 cup) instead of herbed oil.  I lightly sprinkle the heavily oiled dough with coarse sea salt just before baking.

When the bread is almost finished, I remove it from the oven to lightly sprinkle with sugar and/or cinnamon, then return it to the oven for another 5 minutes to lightly caramelize while it finishes baking.

FYI:  I split the dough in half at the panning stage, putting both halves into their own pans.  One pan goes into the fridge to ferment, while the other goes into the freezer.  To use the frozen dough, transfer it to the fridge on the morning of the day BEFORE you want to bake it.

Home baked raisin bread 2 weekends in a row — life is good.