Ingredients

• 2/3 cup hot milk
• ½ cup butter or margarine melted
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup warm water
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 3 large eggs beaten
• 5 ¼ cups flour
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 ½ cups raisin

Instructions

1. Stir together milk, butter, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside until lukewarm.
2. Pour water into your mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast over the water and stir to dissolve. Add lukewarm milk mixture, eggs, 2 ½ cups of the flour and nutmeg. Beat until smooth.
3. Stir in raisins and additional flour, about 2 cups to make soft dough. Do not beat this dough with a mixer because you will destroy the raisins. Turn out onto a lightly floured board. Kneed until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Adding additional flour as needed.
4. Place dough in a greased bowl and turn to grease the top. Cover with dish towel and let stand until double in size………..one to two hours.
5. Punch dough down and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. This resting is very important as it will allow you to shape the loaves easier.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. It is better to allow the oven plenty of time to heat up and stay on so I usually do this step before I shape the loaves. The heat from the oven helps rise the loaves.
7. Divide the dough in half, shape into loaves and place each in a greased 9 by 5 loaf pan. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1 ½ hours.
8. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from pans as soon as you can handle the pans and cool OUT OF THE PAN on racks.