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!

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.