I just joined the BBA Challenge group, hosted by Pinch My Salt, which consists of a group of food bloggers baking their way through Peter Reinhart’s book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
The are very few rules, but the first and foremost rule is that you must start at the beginning of the book and make every recipe in order. So, up first is the Anadama Bread. This bread has a funny myth/story behind it, which you can read on Wikipedia. This bread uses cornmeal, which is soaked in water overnight and molasses. The recipe makes two loaves, so I sliced one up for us and gave the other to a neighbor. The recipe calls for light molasses, but I live in Podunk, so the stores around here only had dark molasses. If I do make this again I will make the effort to find light molasses as dark has a strong flavor that not everyone enjoys. I liked the bread quite a bit though and will be enjoying it this week with turkey and mayo :)
Another suggestion by the group is that you take photos during the process of your bread making. While I don’t normally provide step by step photos, I will be for this particular challenge. So any time you see a BBA post, you can guarantee it will be photo heavy. ;) So, on with the pics!
While this recipe takes 2 days, that’s only because your cornmeal must soak in water overnight under plastic wrap. Here’s what it looks like after fermenting all night. And let me tell you, it doesn’t smell nice! :-|
Then it’s combined with flour, yeast and water and allowed to ferment another hour, until it bubbles.
And bubble it did!
Next you add in the molasses, and butter and mix together in your KA.
Then you add the rest of the flour and knead by hand or with your KA.
Even after adding an additional 3/4 cup of flour, I still had to knead it by hand and add more flour to get it where it needed to be.
Next it rises again till doubled, then you roll into loaves and place in pans to rise again.
Then finally you bake them to perfection. :)
The result is a wonderful sandwich bread with a soft chewy crust and a lovely brown color! Very tasty, now on to the next challenge!
Love the step-by-step photos! I loved this bread and it was really good for BLT sandwiches! :-)
Yum! It does look like good sandwich bread.
What an interesting challenge. Your bread looks perfect!
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Paz
Your bread looks gorgeous. Perfect for sandwiches!
I am definitely a bread-girl! This looks awesome; unfortunately, I can only admire your skill and wouldn't attempt it myself. I still haven't weaned myself from my bread machine. 8-D
Nicole – Love the idea of BLTs! I was thinking it would be really good for grilled cheese too :)
Tami, Paz and Susan – Thanks! It was tasty :)
Tangled Noodle – I was kind of forced to wean off my bread machine, it broke LOL!
Amanda, welcome to the BBA Challenge! It'll be fun watching you bake your way through the book. Check out everyone else's results and you'll learn from their trial-and-errors. Your Anadama looks wonderful, btw!
I have made loaves from this and it is great for lots of sandwiches and toast! I also made sandwich buns from this and it was great for the same purpose. I also made rolls from this and it was great for dinner! This is just a nice and tasty go to bread. It was really good with ham and beans and the buns were really good with pulled pork! Yours look absolutely beautiful inside and out! Welcome to BBA. I am with the Slow & Steady sub-group who post every other week to fit our schedules better, so right now we are just on Challah which we will post on Sunday. Then we go two weeks before we post the Ciabatta next. It will be fun to see your breads!
Welcome to the BBA! Your bread looks fabulous! I hate to admit, but I jumped in the middle, starting with ciabatta…I'm working my way forwards and backwards…
Awesome bread! Welcome to the BBA challenge. There is so much to learn, and from everyone's posts, so many good ideas out there! I look forward to your next breads!
Love your anadama bread. You should submit it to the bread contest on my site. The winner gets a $179 Super Bread bread knife from New West Knifeworks. You can get more info here:
http://www.phamfatale.com/id_516/title_Pham-Fatale-Bread-Contest/
Let me know if you're interested. All I need is a photo of your bread (for voting) and the link to your recipe.