Molasses, Sultana And Oatmeal Bread (abm / Bread Machine)

Total Time: 55 mins Preparation Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 50 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 10
• 280 ml water (room temperature)
• 400 g bread flour
• 60 g blackstrap molasses
• 15 g butter
• 15 g nonfat dry milk powder (1 tablespoon, heaped)
• 5 g salt (1 teaspoon)
• 55 g oatmeal (a.k.a. porridge oats in the uk)
• 1/4 teaspoon vitamin c powder (optional but recommended.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger (optional, to taste)
• 1 dash ground cloves (generous optional)
• 7 g bread machine yeast (sainsbury's in the uk do 7g rather than the more usual 6g sachets (equals 1 1/2 teaspoons approximat)
• 100 g sultanas (i prefer sultanas for their sweetness, mix these together with...) or 100 g raisins (i prefer sultanas for their sweetness, mix these together with...)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

Recipe

• 1 weigh the main ingredients into the bread machine drum in the order listed.
• 2 the ginger is optional and to taste (i love ginger so i'm a bit generous with it) but if leaving it out then it's probably best to leave the ground cloves out too.
• 3 into a small bowl weigh approx 100g sultanas and mix in a teaspoon of ground ginger to coat the sultanas well (if using ginger).
• 4 start machine on 'speciality' or 'raisin bread' cycle with normal crust setting.
• 5 at about 5 minutes before the end of the second kneading or at the beep (if you trust your machine not to mash up the sultanas - mine is lethal to them so i ignore the beep and wait until only a few minutes remain of the second kneading) add the sultanas mixed together with the ground ginger.
• 6 measurements: i find blackstrap molasses is almost impossible to measure using a spoon as it's so incredibly thick and gooey and most of it stays on the spoon so i just pour it out of the jar - which can make for some rather hit and miss measurements. taste-wise, i liked the strength of flavour best when i suceeded in pouring in 62g of molasses and used 103g of sultanas.
• 7 basically i think of this as cake without the all the fat and the calories :).
• 8 bakes a good-sized 1 1/2 lb loaf.
• 9 addition, tried december 2005 --
• 10 i remebered that i had some crystallized ginger (a.k.a. candied ginger) in the cupboard and added 32g chopped up to about the size of the sultanas which i mixed with the fruit and ground ginger for adding at the beep. the quantity was probably a bit excessive and it does make the loaf a bit trickier to slice as ginger can be quite 'tough', but an idea to bear in mind if you have some in the cupboard and fancy it :).