When I add my raisins to my raisin bread, at the beep of my Zojirushi bread machine, the raisins don’t mix well into the bread, and mostly just coat the outside of the bread.  Many of them get kind of burnt, especially on the bottom of the bread.  I am using white flour, Gold Medal for bread machines.  Any advice out there?

My initial thought - is your dough wet enough, or is is on the dry side?  I like to have a wetter dough in my Zo, and I’ve never had a problem with adding things in.  Perhaps you could post your recipe so we could see exactly what you are doing.

MrsM

I followed the recipe in the Zo book for raisin bread.  It calls for
1 1/2 cup water
4 1/4 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp dry milk
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp yeast (or 3 for rapid rise
After the beep, one cup raisins

I soaked the raisins in cold water for about half an hour.  Maybe that made a difference.

I plump (soak) my raisins too - but in hot tap water for about 10 minutes.  Then I drain and dry on paper towels as best I can. No need to dry them completely, but they should not go into the dough dripping wet.  I don’t know if your soaking of the raisins made the difference or not, I hope you try it again and see if it works better for you.

MrsM

Thanks!  I will try drying the raisins a little and see if that makes a difference for me.  Otherwise, I have a new recipe for Crispey Raisin Encrusted Bread. 

Just another thought on this—I haven’t used a machine, but when I add raisins and others things when working by hand, I often let the dough rest about 10 minutes first.  Once the gluten relaxes a bit, it is a lot easier to incorporate additional ingredients.

By the way, try saving the water you soaked your raisins in and using that in your recipe in place of plain water.  Rose does this in a few of her recipes and it adds a nice flavor.  I soak the raisins in hot water for up to an hour covered, drain them, and add the water.