Starting Over! Recipe #1 - Anadama Bread

The Scene

Well, I started this challenge to prove to myself that I could follow through with a project. It is now almost a full year after my first and only post, and here I am starting it all over again. I could blame the weather, the holidays, the fact that I screwed up the second bake, and any other number of things. I think I'll blame myself though, cause honestly, I have the attention span of a gnat. A gnat on a meth bender with an epic case of ADD. That's me. At least a lot of the time.

Anyway, here I am again to give it another shot. This time, I have already finished the first three breads in the book which guarantees at least three entries to this blog. Since I am on a quest to better myself, my career, my video game skills, and various other things of importance, I am hoping that this well of motivation can carry through to the less important things like baking awesome bread.

Also, I got a new camera. As much as I loved my first-generation Olympus "VGA" digital camera, it had come to the point where it was being held together with pieces of tape and the pictures were starting to look more and more like Polaroids from the 1970's. I still love it, but I now also love my 8.1 megapixel Sony!

As for the bread, you can find my witty retelling of it's origin story in my original post.

Recipe Deviations and Issues

As before, I used regular dark molasses instead of the suggested golden molasses. I also didn't sprinkle cornmeal on top again due to the coarse grain of the meal that I use.

When mixing the dough, I eyeballed the water in a measuring cup to a few ounces above the required amount. When I went to pour it into the bowl of ingredients, I forgot to measure the right weight, instead just throwing the whole amount in. This resulted in having to add a bit more flour than the recipe called for.

I also ended up with the sides of the tops of the loaves splitting due to an extreme oven spring. I think that this was because of an insufficient rise time. It was rising rather slowly and I had to let it go for about an hour longer than it called for, but it still wasn't enough. I am pretty sure that this was due to old yeast that had probably been in my fridge for too long.

Final Results

Even with the two mistakes mentioned above, these loaves were still amazing. Light, rich, and oozing with molasses goodness. After sampling, I gave my friend Beth half a loaf to take home with her and she bitched about only getting half a loaf. Methinks that means success!

Bake Your Own

The recipe at the following link has some differences from the BBA book, but looks like it will get the job done.

Anadama Bread recipe at thefreshloaf.com 

Up next, Greek Celebration Bread!