I really like this bread. I baked it for about 55 minutes and it turned out well. I didn't add raisins bc half of the dough was made into a pastrami experiment (I halved the recipe to make 2 loaves), and I didn't think pastrami and raisins went well together. I also used my bread machine to mix the dough since I'm lazy like that. I really like the end result, but I had to tinker a bit with the amount of water. It wasn't quite enough at first, so the dough wasn't mixing. I added about 1/4 c of water. The dough was a bit sticky at the end bc I accidently added more water than I meant to, but it worked well enough. I think this bread needs an egg wash; it doesn't come out golden brown at all; just sort of a light tan color that isn't that pretty. Aside from that, though, I really like the bread. Fennel is one of my favorite flavors, though--if you don't like it, don't bother. Thank you for the recipe! Worth trying again!