Instead, turn the bread on its side, so that perfectly crispy bottom crust is now facing out rather than facing down. It's a simple trick, and when you slice it this way, the hearty bread holds ...

Mix to coat the raisins to help keep them from falling to the bottom of the bread. Using a pastry blender to cut in cold ...

Slice the bread of your choice, toast and butter it and arrange in overlapping slices in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, leaving some edges sticking out at the top so that they crisp up.

However, slicing a bagel into bread-like slices means that you're likely to end up with two mini-slices -- tiny discs! -- that remain once you've cut all the slices on either side of the bagel's hole.