Raisin bread

Raisin bread or fruit bread (also known as fruit toast in New Zealand and Australia)[2] is a type of bread made with raisins and flavored with cinnamon. It is "usually a white flour or egg dough bread".[3] Aside from white flour, raisin bread is also made with other flours, such as all-purpose flour, oat flour, or whole wheat flour. Some recipes include honey, brown sugar, eggs, or butter.[4] Variations of the recipe include the addition of walnuts,[5] hazelnuts,[6] pecans[7] or, for a dessert, rum or whisky.[8][9]

Raisin bread
Raisin bread with cinnamon sugar swirled in the dough
TypeSweet bread
Main ingredientsGrain, Raisins, Yeast[1]

Raisin bread is eaten in many different forms, including being served toasted for breakfast ("raisin toast") or made into sandwiches.[10] Some restaurants serve raisin bread with their cheeseboards.[11]

History

Its invention has been popularly incorrectly attributed to Henry David Thoreau[12][13][nb 1] in Concord, Massachusetts lore, as there have been published recipes for bread with raisins since 1671.[14] Since the 15th century, breads made with raisins were made in Europe. In Germany stollen was a Christmas bread. Kulich was an Easter bread made in Russia and panettone was made in Italy.[15] The earliest citation for "raisin bread" in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated to an 1845 article in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.[16] In England, raisin bread became a common element of high tea from the second half of the 19th century.[17] In the 1920s, raisin bread was advertised as "The Bread Of Iron", due to the high iron content of the raisins.[18] The bread became increasingly popular among English bakers in the 1960s.[19]

Varieties
A loaf of raisin challa

European versions of raisin bread include the Estonian "kringel"[20] and the Slovakian "vianočka"[21] and "stafidopsomo" in Greece. A similar food is raisin challah, a traditional Jewish food for Shabbat and holidays.[22] It has been suggested that Garibaldi biscuits were based on a raisin bread that was eaten by the troops of Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi.[23]

In Australia and New Zealand, buttered raisin toast is common for breakfast.[2]

Production

The United States Code of Federal Regulations specifies standards that raisin bread produced in the country must meet. This includes a requirement for the weight of the raisins to be equal to 50% of the weight of flour used.[24] Raisin bread is one of five types of bread for which federal standards have been outlined.[25]

In cosmology

The ways in which individual raisins move during rising and baking of the bread is often used as an analogy to explain the expansion of the universe.[26][27]

See also

Notes
  1. Walter Harding wrote in his biography of Henry Thoreau that the man had created raisin bread. Author Ken Jennings writes: "It seems the eminent Professor Harding was taken in by, of all things, a story in a 1943 Ladies' Home Journal article, which got its delicious, raisiny facts from a longstanding legend in Thoreau's hometown of Concord, Massachusetts... Ultimately Harding recanted his claims in a 1990 Thoreau Society Bulletin titled 'Thoreau and Raisin Bread.'"[14]

References
  1. Charel Scheele (October 12, 2011). Old World Breads and the History of a Flemish Baker. iUniverse. p. 86. ISBN 978-1-4620-5472-5.
  2. "Fruit bread – Eat Well Recipe". NZ Herald. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  3. Mark Bricklin, ed. (1994). Prevention Magazine's Nutrition Advisor: The Ultimate Guide to the Health-Boosting and Health-Harming Factors in Your Diet. Rodale. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-87596-225-2.
  4. Mark Bricklin (August 15, 1994). Prevention Magazine's Nutrition Advisor: The Ultimate Guide to the Health-Boosting and Health-Harming Factors in Your Diet. Rodale. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-87596-225-2.
  5. "Delia skims the goalpost". The Independent on Sunday. June 25, 2000.
  6. Miers, Thomasina (December 15, 2007). "Party season's big dippers". The Times.
  7. Richardson, Belinda (June 25, 2005). "'We could be in the lounge bar of an ocean-going liner'". The Daily Telegraph.
  8. "10 top spots near the shops". The Times. December 15, 2007.
  9. Ferrier, Clare (September 13, 2008). "The Royal Oak, Brookland". The Daily Telegraph.
  10. Hensperger, Beth (2000). The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook. Harvard Common Press. p. 449. ISBN 978-1-55832-156-4.
  11. Mclean, Neil (June 27, 2004). "If this is a diet, count me in". The Sunday Times.
  12. Fain, Jean (July 11, 2017). "What Did Thoreau Really Eat? You Might Be Surprised". NPR. National Public Radio. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  13. Dolis, J. (2005) Tracking Thoreau: double-crossing nature and technology p.32. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press ISBN 0-8386-4045-1 Retrieved January 2012
  14. Ken Jennings (September 12, 2006). Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs. Random House Publishing Group. p. 168. ISBN 978-1-58836-552-1.
  15. "History of Raisins and Dried Fruit". Sun Maid. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  16. "raisin, n." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  17. Wilson, Bee (March 9, 2002). "There's nothing 'high' about high tea". The Times.
  18. "The Bread of Iron (advertisement)" (PDF). The Sunday Oregonian. Portland, Oregon. September 18, 1921. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  19. Woodland, John (October 20, 1967). "Price blow to raisin traders in UK". The Times.
  20. Brûlé, Tyler (December 27, 2008). "Things to do, places to go". The Financial Times.
  21. Gill, Jaime (November 22, 2008). "A winter affair". The Guardian.
  22. Phyllis Glazer; Miriyam Glazer (March 29, 2011). The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking. HarperCollins. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-06-204121-0.
  23. Vallely, Paul (June 30, 2007). "Garibaldi: The First Global Action Hero". The Independent.
  24. "Section 136.160 – Raisin bread, rolls, and buns". Code of Federal Regulations. April 1, 2005. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  25. "Taking the wraps off bread". Kiplinger's Personal Finance. May 1982. p. 40. ISSN 1528-9729. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  26. "What does it mean when they say the universe is expanding?". Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress. August 23, 2010. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  27. NASA/WMAP Science Team (March 25, 2013). "Tests of Big Bang: Expansion". WMAP's Universe. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved November 26, 2013.

Further reading
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