Instructions: For toatmaster place ingredients in order listed ( otherwise follow your manufactures instructions ) except raisins, nuts and cinnamon ! Select sweet bread program. light crust ( I use medium and its fine ). Add cinnamon, nuts and raisns at the beep ( which would be approx.the last 10 minutes of the last kneading cycle ). Note: we dont always add the nuts and just increase the raisins.

First of all, my machine (a 2 lb Black & Decker) almost stalled because the dough was so stiff with the listed amount of liquid. I added more until the amount of liquid totaled 1 1/2 cup. Even so, the loaf came out with a gnarly top. My instruction book says this is a sign of insufficient liquid. How does one account for the different amounts of liquid required?

Second, the bread did not rise as much as my most successful breads do, and the texture is fairly doughy. Suppose next time I make this, I use 1 1/2 cups plus 1 TBSP liquid; would getting the dough stiffness right also help the amount of rise and texture?

Incidently, I hadnt previously thought of adding the cinnimon with the raisins and nuts, and I found that doing it later leaves nice swirling patterns in the finished bread - kind of attractive.

Dont bother to add a dough conditioner since the lemon juice conditions the dough. I experimented and did add extra powdered dough conditioner and the bread came out too soft and didnt cut well.The Toastmaster breadmaker uses 1 tsp lemon juice in all their bread recipes.You may want to try this with any of your abm recipes. Their bread booklet suggests lemon juice or vinegar ( both acidic ) which helps in the structure of the loaf of bread. And their comment about cinnamon: dont add more than instructed since cinnamon ( as well as garlic ) inhibits the growth of yeast. Thought Id pass it on to those who didnt know

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