Anadama bread…warm, fragrant, and irresistible.
The Rowdy Baker strike has been settled at last, so I got to play in the kitchen today. Do you know what the final straw was? We ran out of bread. Out.Of.Bread. Since we live out in the country and a gallon of gas costs…well…about the same as a loaf of store-bought bread, both sides (stubborn husband and obstinate wife) entered into discussions and compromised.
Thank goodness, because I honestly don’t think I could have gone much longer without flinging flour.
Today I dusted off my recipe file and made Anadama bread – probably my very favorite bread to bake. Cornmeal and molasses give it a gorgeous color and complex flavor, perfect for sandwiches and toast. My recipe makes four loaves, because if I’m going to go to the trouble of baking bread, I like to make a big batch and put some in the freezer. If you don’t have room in your freezer, you can easily cut the recipe in half.
Freshly ground cornmeal.
I grow my own flour corn and grind it as I need it. (Stop rolling your eyes; I just happen to love doing stuff like that.) The corn is multi-colored, so my loaves don’t have the beautiful coppery color that comes with using traditional cornmeal, but yours will. Just do yourself a favor, please, and buy organic cornmeal. GMO corn is scary stuff.
Grab your apron and give this recipe a try!
| ANADAMA BREAD | | Print |
- ½ cup butter, softened
- ½ cup molasses
- 1½ cups cornmeal
- 1½ cups boiling water
- ½ cup warm water
- 2 packages active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 6-7 cups bread flour
- In a large bowl (preferably using a stand mixer) mix together the butter, molasses, cornmeal, and boiling water. Set aside to cool.
- In a small bowl, stir the yeast and sugar into the ½ cup warm water. Let it sit until bubbly (about 5 minutes.)
- Stir the yeast mixture, eggs, salt, and 5 cups of the flour into the mixture in the large bowl. Mix well.
- On low speed, add as much of the remaining flour as needed to make a soft dough that pulls away from the side of the bowl. Knead for 5 minutes with the dough hook or by hand on a floured surface for 8 minutes.
- Place dough in a large greased bowl, turning the dough over once to lightly coat with grease. Cover with a towel and let rise until double, about 1-2 hours.
- If you are using bread pans, coat them with shortening. If you are making rounds, sprinkle two cookie sheets with cornmeal. Separate dough into quarters, and form into logs for the bread pans or rounds for the cookie sheets. Two rounds of bread will fit on a cookie sheet.
- Cover and let rise until double, about 1-2 hours.
- Heat the oven to 375 F. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until deep brown. Cool on rack.
Knead that dough!
Let ‘er rise…
Shape the loaves
Put it in the pan
Bake that bread!
Soften up the butter, because you’re going to want to try a slice of this while it’s still warm. And when it’s cooled off. And toasted. Oooh, and for grilled cheese and french toast! You can figure out the rest – I can’t talk with my mouth full.
Okay girl, now you have me wanting to bake bread when I’m supposed to be sewing 😉
You can do both, you know. There’s that 1-2 hour rising time for each rise. C’mon, multitask!
In the photo the tops look shiny, did you use an egg wash on top? Glad all is well and you are flinging flour again.
I just rubbed some butter over the tops when the bread was still hot. I like that look! Yep – I’m happy now!