Chocoholics Deeply Delicious Dark Chocolate Raisin Loaf (Abm) Recipe

Directions:

1. Remove pan from bread machine and place on electronic scales and zero them.
2. Weigh in the water (243ml water weighs 243g) and the rest of the loaf ingredients and replace pan in the bread machine.
3. Select Speciality White / Raisin or similar programme depending on your machine and crust type if required (I use a normal crust setting) and start the machine.
4. Into a small bowl weigh the raisins, cocoa powder and oat bran and chocolate chips and mix well with a teaspoon.
5. I can't get bitter chocolate chips and used the remains of a bar of bitter (70% Cocoa) chocolate which I chipped up to about 1/4 inch 'cubes' with a small sharp knife. I used 22g total in the bowl putting only the bigger bits into the bowl and retained the tiny bits to sprinkle on my next Cafe latte (I guess you could just sprinkle them on top of the hot fresh-baked loaf). For greater indulgence 30g or so of chocolate would be nice but I'd run out for some reason :). The original Panasonic recipe called for 40g. I recommend staying with bitter or bittersweet chocolate (known as 'Plain Chocolate' in the UK) and avoiding milk chocolate. You could just use bitter or bittersweet chocolate chips if you can get them.
6. Add the raisins and chocolate chip mix at the beep or at 4 to 5 minutes before final keading ends. (My machine beeps 9 mins before end of kneading which is too long as it always completely pulverises the fruit. Five minutes of mixing-in time is plenty.
7. I glaze after baking with a very thin glaze of icing sugar (1 small Tsp) and 1/2 Tsp dried milk powder mixed with a little warm water. It keeps it a bit moister if you prefer it that way.
8. You may need to add a teaspoon-ish of water if the raisins are very dried.
9. Bakes approx 1 1/2lb Loaf.
10. (Some chopped hazelnuts would really go great in this loaf but I seldom have them as they don't keep. You could perhaps swap all the raisins for about 50g-60g Glace cherries (but do drop the water down to 240ml) and then even perhaps substitute a bit of the water for Kirschwasser (cherry brandy) but haven't tried that combination, yet!).
11. This is wonderful topped or sandwiched with Dulce De Leche or squishy banana (or both I imagine). It tastes very much like a dark chocolate Brownie.