High Hydration Loaf

Day 26: Since discovering the joys of baking no-knead sourdough in a Dutch oven, I've been wanting to expand my repertoire of breads. I finally got around to hunting for recipes, and found one for a high-hydration loaf (85%) raisin bread from a reputable source. This is not a sourdough recipe, mind you. It's good old-fashioned raisin bread. It uses instant yeast, and at first I blamed the low amount of oven spring on the fact that it is added dry to the flour, but then I realized I had forgotten to slash the top of the dough to let the steam escape. Setting that small oversight aside, it is delicious! I'm going to do some fine tuning of the recipe, though, using part of the water to activate the yeast ahead of time, before adding it to the flour. I like to see my yeast working before committing it to a dough. I may also give the dough an additional rise (it only had two of half an hour each), which also means one additional round of stretching and folding. This bread is worth perfecting!