Anadama BBA Recipe

Yesterday I made the BBA Anadama bread.  The composition of the bread actually started the day before when I had to make a "soaker" of corn meal and water:

I used the same Great Smoky Mountain stone ground corn meal that I used in the Anadama bread on Friday.  In many breads with cornmeal, the cornmeal soaks in boiling water until it reaches room temperature, but this one started in lukewarm water and soaked all night.  I wondered if it would make the bread less "crunchy" than the Jones' recipe.

On Saturday the real Anadama work began.  Reinhart uses instant yeast, something that isn't a staple in my kitchen but will be in this year of BBA baking!  First you put the soaker in a mixing bowl with some of the flour and let the sponge sit for about an hour until it is bubbly. (I almost forgot to take the photo below so the rest of the flour is sitting on the right half of the sponge).

Then you add all the other dry ingredients along with the molasses (2 T less than in the Jones' recipe), the salt and the shortening and mix it all together.  I used and will continue to use my Kitchen Aid for this project.

Really difficult to mix this in - in most bread recipes, you add the flour 1/2 cup at a time.  I would have been happier to mix the rest of the ingredients in more gradually.

But it did all come together as described into a "tacky" dough.

Then the bread had an opportunity to rise until doubled:

I weighed the risen dough to put equal amounts into each pan.  Mine weighed 26 ounces per loaf instead of the 24 ounces that the recipe said.  I don't think I added flour, but I don't know what was different.

The bread was supposed to rise for an hour but in my warm kitchen, it was cresting above the pans at half an hour.  Reinhart would say that the bread would have a deeper flavor if I had a cooler place in which it had risen - I'll do that the next time.

I had preheated the oven so I brushed the tops of the loaves with water and sprinkled them with corn meal.  

They had good oven spring and looked lovely when they were done.  One side looked perfect:

But the other side looked like this.  I guess I didn't secure the seam very well when I rolled the loaves or they had too much oven spring in my convection oven.

The BBA Anadama sliced beautifully, had a nice crumb and was a much lighter loaf than the Anadama from the Book of Bread.  

Here are the two side by side.  The loaf on the right is from the Book of Bread.  The Anadama on the left is from BBA.  They have approximately the same amount of flour.  The bread on the right has 2 T more of molasses which makes it a darker, more colorful bread.  The BBA bread used instant (rapidrise) yeast and the bread on the right used active dry yeast.

In taste, the Anadama from BBA is much lighter and has a crunchier, crispy crust.  The Anadama from the Book of Bread is sweeter and denser than the BBA loaf.  Both are delicious.  I gave one of my daughters the second loaf from the Book of Bread and another daughter the second (prettier) loaf from BBA.  As for me, I had two soft boiled eggs for breakfast - one on one type of toast and the other on the other type of toast.  A truly luxurious treat.

This coming weekend, the challenge bread is a Greek bread and has a starter, so I got my sourdough out of the downstairs refrigerator and will be feeding it all week to get it up to the task!

Basic White Bread II - Part Two

Having turned the bread dough out of the container, I cut it in half with the bench knife and patted out a rectangular shape of sorts! Then I rolled it into a loaf. Of course, you repeat this with the second half.



I put these rolled loaves into 8 1/2 inch pans to rise. I made the mistake of getting distracted and forgetting the bread, so it rose a little higher than it should have before putting it into the oven (350 degrees for 40 minutes).

The finished loaf is pretty but the far end of the loaf is an obvious air bubble below the surface - probably the result of my leaving it rising for too long. It smells great because of the honey in the bread.



This bread cut open shows the air bubble. The authors say that this version of their white bread will be both somewhat sweet because of the honey and not as compact as either a bread recipe without the sweetener or one that starts with a sponge. It does taste sweeter than the first white bread I made but I don't like the "crumb" as well.

For a listen into what the "crumb" of the bread means, watch this video of Peter Reinhart on Ted.com.



So far I like the Hensperger bread better - the crumb was better and the taste, while not sweet, felt more wholesome to me.

Basic White Bread II - the Second White Bread Part One

I've owned Judith and Evan Jones' book: The Book of Bread since 1986. At the beginning the dedication is to James Beard. It actually says: "For James A. Beard, an inspiration."

I believe it may be out of print since I could only find it from private sellers on Amazon and it was listed on a couple of other used book sites, but nowhere as available new - except from used book sellers who listed it as "new" which I read as "as good as new." So I'm going to give you the recipe:

1 T active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups milk
4 T butter
4 T honey
1 T coarse salt
6 1/2 - 7 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

If you ever find this book, don't pass it by! It is a wonderful addition to a bread baker's library because the variety of recipes in it are so interesting.

Of course I used my own honey from my bees in this recipe.

First you soften the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl. Then you warm the milk and add the butter, the honey and the salt. When the milk is at 110 degrees F, you can add it to the yeast mix in the large bowl.



Mix in the milk mixture and then add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. After 6 cups, this is what my mixture looked like so I obviously needed to add more flour. I did so, 1/2 cup at a time and switched to the dough hook to do this.



As per Beth Hensperger, I put the dough in a straight-sided container to rise. It had more than doubled in about an hour.



I love turning the dough out of the deep container - it looks so full of energy on the counter!



Next post will continue this bread.