Tried a bread machine recipe for cinnamon raisin bread with whole wheat flour. It uses buttermilk, so this particular recipe isn’t going to be a throw-it-together-from-the-pantry staple for us, given that I don’t keep buttermilk in the house on the regular. But overall, it was tasty and I’ll try it again with some tweaks.

Adapted from Bread Machine Magic, for 1lb loaf.

• 5/8 – 3/4 C. buttermilk (I used 5/8, next time try 3/4)
• 1 egg
• 1 C. whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 C. bread flour
• 3/4 t. salt
• 1 t. cinnamon (more would be good)
• 1/4 C. butter (I used a little more than half this.)
• 2 T. brown sugar (I used cane sugar)
• 1/2 C. raisins
• 1 1/2 t. dry active yeast

Results:

• Had to add more buttermilk, as the dough spiraled up and out of the baking pan. Added about 2T more during first kneading cycle.  Was afraid that I might have added too much when it looked like a wet blob when it started the first rise, but it seemed to rise okay in the end. Bread was a little unevenly dense – more so toward the bottom of the loaf.
    Next time: Add 1T more buttermilk at the outset and see what happens.

• Crust got a little too dark.
    Next time: bake on light crust setting, or take out before end of bake cycle.

• Raisins not evenly distributed.  More towards the bottom.
    Next time: Try adding raisins at the “Add” beep instead of with everything at the beginning. Try not soaking them first?