Looks yummy, edie. I made a recipe for spiral cinnamon raisin bread — worked on it until it was perfect tasting. I’ve since misplaced it. Mine used to separate as well.

I do recall America’s Test Kitchen making a recipe that addressed this frequent problem. I think it is in one of my temporarily packed away magazines. I forgot what trick or technique they used. Perhaps they braided it or twisted it. BTW, I never used a layer of butter when I spread my dough out and sprinkled the sugar, cinnamon and raisins. I think yours looks fine. Slice, please!

Thanks, Petalique. It does taste pretty good but it would have been better with the raisins in every bite. Maybe it was the butter? I will have to try again sometime without the butter and see if it sticks together better.

Ah! I better understand now. You prefer traditional “raisin bread” with the raisin throughout, not just in a spiraled layer.

I used to make my recipe of oatmeal raisin bread like this. I would make the dough, let it proof at least once after kneading. Then I would add the plain raisins without anything added — no flour, no sugar, no liquid to the dough. For each loaf, I believe I added about 1/2 to 3/4 Cup of raisins.

Knead/hand mix them into the dough. My bread recipe might have had a bit of oil in it. It may take a while to patiently incorporate all the raisins, they may want to pop out or hang out together, but patiently try to get them distributed.

Shape your loaf/loaves and set them into your thinly oiled pan/s. You may want to embellish the tops a bit. With my oatmeal-raisin bread, I pressed some old-fashion oats onto, into the top. With your raisin bread, you could leave plain, use an egg wash, or sprinkle and tap/press in a few sesame seeds.

I would cover my loaves with a cotton flour sack kitchen towel (light weight) or a woven cotton tea towel. Let the loaves rise as directed. Then put then into a preheated oven, separate the pans for air flow, and bake as directed for your recipe.

When close to done or done, I would check the internal temperature of the loaf with a probe thermometer. I cannot recall the setting for done bread. It’s bound to be online or someone here will know and respond. There is the old fashioned way to test for doneness, but I didn’t want to knock my oat flakes off the top. I also wanted to be sure I didn’t over or under cook the loaf after all my effort.

I have no baked bread in a while (because I would inhale it all immediately), but it is an incredibly rewarding endeavor in many ways. Take some photos and get back to us. Have fun.

Edie, I found this. But double check online or with cookbook or a baker member. Generally, it’s 190 or 200 degrees F.. See below — it depends on if it’s enriched with butter, eggs or milk (200 deg F if so).

The reader’s correction:

“BrooklynBaker

25 Jan, 2010

Wait, hang on...switch that! The internal temp for ENRICHED breads should be 190 (or somewhere between 180-190), and for LEAN breads (aka drier, crusty ones like baguettes) it should be over 200.”

link: https://www.thekitchn.com/fresh-baked-how-to-tell-when-b-106715

Petalique, I was actually trying to do the raisins in the spiral but I like your way much better, it seems that the rausins would be better evenly distributed and stay in the slice when sliced. Thank you so much. I do temp my bread. This recipe has no eggs, milk, etc but it does have vegetable oil. Still, I go ahead and pull it out when it reaches 190°F on my quick-read thermometer. Thank you again. And yes, trying not to inhale an entire loaf in a day is tough :>)

For raisin bread, yes, do distribute them. Either just mixed into the dough (if you're using a mixer, the raisins are small, and you're not worried about a little damage to them, you can actually add them part way through the dough hook knead. Or, at least with a single hook shaped hook. You might not be able to do it with a double spiral hook system.

Another way to do it, if you're find with the directional grain going all different ways, is to do a braid. Section the risen dough in three (if it's being coiled in a pan) or four (for a flat sheet), make long ropes and kind of flatten them. Add the raisins/filling down the center, roll the edges over and kind of work and twist it. You're not trying to encapsulate the filling, just incorporate it. I think it's better when the bits are poking out all over. All that without overhandling or over squishing. Braid as usual. For a loaf or round pan, put one end in the middle, then drape the length as evenly as possible. Let rise again before baking. ETA: This method is not so different from the last one Petalique posted (crosspost), but I don't like the cross section shown. It isn't well distributed. The braid method should give you good dispersal.

I haven't done it the way you were doing, but you could do it more like making cinnamon rolls. For a loaf pan, as in your picture, lightly roll (i.e., don't lean in or use a lot of pressure. Just flatten), the risen dough to about the length of your pan wide by as long as is feasible. Add your filling. Don't overcrowd the raisins or other bumps--leave some area so that they won't roll up right next to each other. Roll tightly, pinch ends and put in pan to rise. It looks in your picture like you only have one turn, and that as it rose the space between the dough layers rose too. I'm not sure that this way, with the rolled dough and more turns will actually be different, or if it'll also have the air between layers but not such big gaps for it being more distributed.

I hope you try again and report back!

Here's another one from CI

They mix the raisins into the dough. The swirl is cinnamon and sugar.

Barb, thanks! When I thought about making raisin bread, I knew I had seen it somewhere but couldn't remember where. I appreciate it!!

Although I extremely dislike Martha Stewart, I did catch an episode that she did on breads her recipe for the cinnamon swirl looked delicious, albeit somewhat labour intensive. Her recipe is likely online if you’re interested.