Recipe #1 - Annadama Bread

The Scene

What a perfect day to start this baking project! It's a cold and rainy day here in Berkeley and aside from the cats, I've got the house to myself which is always a rare treat when you have two housemates. A few blocks away, Cal Football is playing their final game of the season, and their final game ever at Memorial Stadium before they start the major rebuild and renovation. (They lost. Surprise, surprise.)

As for the bread, the first of my BBA Challenge, the powers of alphabetical order present to me Annadama Bread. The story behind the name involves some guy swearing at his wife when she wouldn't make him a sandwich. This led him to throw a bunch of random ingredients together and bake a bread so he could make his own damn sandwich. Or something like that. It's a cute and unlikely tale that sounds like an excellent marketing ploy for the first bakery that produced this bread.

The bread itself is a sandwich-style loaf that uses molasses and cornmeal as key flavoring ingredients. The process was rather simple with a cornmeal and water soak started the night before to break down the starches, and a basic mix, knead, proof, bake process on baking day. I guess it's good to start out simple when I've got breads like the Poilaine Miche coming later in the challenge.

Recipe Deviations and Issues

I didn't make any real changes to the recipe. The notes did suggest using golden molasses, but I couldn't find any at my local market so I went with the dark. I also chose not to sprinkle cornmeal on the top of the loaves as the cornmeal I have is very coarsely ground and would have ended up breaking teeth. The only issue I had was that one of the loaves was a bit bigger than the other, but not enough to cause problems with baking times. I think I will start using the scale when forming loaves in the future.

Final Results

Success! The bread came out fluffy and slightly dense in texture, not unlike a whole wheat sandwich loaf. The molasses gives it a great color and a nice sweetness that screams to be made into french toast. It also made a great grilled peanut butter and honey sandwich, which if you've never had before, you should definitely swear at your wife until she makes you one!

Up next, Greek Celebration Bread.