MOLASSES, SULTANA AND OATMEAL BREAD (ABM / BREAD MACHINE)

Molasses, Sultana and Oatmeal Bread (Abm / Bread Machine) image

This loaf is a bit special - I have been requested for the recipe so many times I felt it would be nice to share it here. It is absolutely wonderful served cold or toasted with a nice orange marmalade or a ginger conserve/jam. (Plus butter or just with butter if you're into it!) To be honest it so resembles a cake I often cut a generous slice, chop it into squares and place in a bowl, tease a spoonful of marmalade or ginger jam across it, pour over some ready-made custard, then heat in the microwave for 1 minute. As a note for other UK readers: I tried it with Black Treacle instead of molasses one time (as Molasses is quite hard to find in the UK (and pricey) - and it had a very poor flavour by comparison - I've since found that the 'Holland & Barrett' UK Health Foods chain do a selection of different molasses at a very reasonable price). I've found that this loaf keeps well - perhaps because of all the sugar in the molasses. N.B. Cooking time listed is the baking time for my machine. Total time for my (LG) machine is 3 hours 20 minutes.

Provided by Ethan UK

Categories Breads

Time 55m

Yield 10 serving(s)

Number Of Ingredients 13

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Ingredients

280 ml water (room temperature)
400 g white 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)

Steps:

Weigh the main ingredients into the bread machine drum in the order listed.
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.
Into a small bowl weigh approx 100g sultanas and mix in a teaspoon of ground ginger to coat the sultanas well (if using ginger).
Start machine on 'speciality' or 'raisin bread' cycle with normal crust setting.
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.
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.
Basically I think of this as cake without the all the fat and the calories :).
Bakes a good-sized 1 1/2 Lb Loaf.
Addition, tried December 2005 --
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 :).