TWD - Raisin Swirl Bread

It's Tuesday with Dorie Day! Susan of Food.Baby chose Raisin Swirl Bread for this week and what a delicious selection. I love all things bread and needed to work out a few bread baking kinks.I did alter a few things like add lemon zest instead of orange zest. I had half a lemon to use up. Fresh nutmeg is always fun to add!The concept "more is better" does not always fit. I omitted the raisins, doubled the sugar, used 1 T. cinnamon and 1 T. Valrhona cocoa powder for the filling. My swirl in the bread did not stay tight. My deduction is too much swirl filler. Maybe I am wrong so if anyone would like to jump in and add input, please do =). The raisin issue actually ended up being a great conversation piece. Hubby and I discussed in length whether we do or do not like raisins. For 10 years, I swore Larry didn't like raisins and I was pretty sure my taste buds said "no" too. Come to find out, neither of us "dislike" them. In fact, we both kind of do like them. I even found out he likes carrot salad with raisins. So do I! Crazy chicken stuff I tell you. AND the clincher to all this was I had already made the bread and it was happily rising while we were having this conversation. While the bread was rising, we decided to torture our two cats, Fluffy and Shadow by flying a stealth helicopter. Always makes for a great laugh!See? Wide, open swirl. I shake my head. The flavor is delicious, even with no raisins. Who knew, we like raisins. I am still in shock. You have just GOT to go see Susan's bread at Food.Baby, as was mentioned at the beginning of this post. Her bread is PERFECT! and check out the rest of the Tuesday with Dorie bakers because a few of the bakers have some pretty fun surprises and twists.