Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 2 cups cake flour (see recipe notes on making your own)
- 3 tablespoons toasted sugar, plus more for sprinkling
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
- 3/4 cup buttermilk or sour milk (see recipe notes on how to make sour milk
- 1/3 cup raisins (you can add 1/2 if you like more raisins in your bread)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a small skillet, measure out about 1/4 cup sugar. Gently heat it on low, keeping a careful eye and stirring it regularly until it has turned a light golden color. Remove immediately from the heat before it begins to melt and harden. Transfer to a glass bowl and set aside until ready to use.
- In a large bowl whisk together cake flour, toasted sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Add chilled butter and mix with a pastry blender until the flour mixture has a sand-like consistency.
- Add the buttermilk and stir to combine until you a slightly sticky dough. Turn out onto a floured work surface and divide the dough in half and then quarters. Shape the loaves and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Using a paring knife, gently make an 'X' shape on top of each loaf. Brush with milk and sprinkle with extra toasted sugar.
- Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until golden. Remove and let rest on a cooling rack. Serve warm with butter and jam if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
For homemade cake flour, simply measure out and level 1 cup of all purpose flour. Remove 2 tablespoons of flour from the cup and replace with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift the flour and cornstarch together twice. *For today's recipe you will want to repeat this process since the recipe calls for 2 cups of cake flour.
For homemade sour milk, combine 1 cup of whole milk and 1 tablespoon vinegar (I like to use apple cider vinegar but white vinegar is fine too). Let the mixture stand for about 10 minutes until the milk and curdled.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
