I was stuck without power for 4 days following Irene... fortunately, the local library was open and they had Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I've been reading it for a couple of days (by flashlight :) )  One of the first recipes I looked at was for "Anadama" bread and I figured I try it now that I've got power back.

I started the soaker last night and, this morning, I mixed part of the flour with the yeast, water and corn meal mixture, covered it and let it pre-ferment for about an hour.  The instructions said, "or until bubbly" and mine was certainly bubbly by the time the hour was up.  Once the pre-ferment was ready, the remaining flour, salt, molasses and shortening (unsalted butter) was mixed in to form the dough.  After a couple of minutes in the KA mixer, the dough was still very sticky, so I ended up adding a couple of teaspoons of flour (little by little) to get it (to where I thought it was) right.  

After mixing for some time, it still didn't appear to have a very well developed gluten structure (window pane test) so I decided to do some stretch and folds, rest, and S&F again.  It really is amazing how doing something so simple for a short amount of time can have such an immediate impact on the dough... It literally changes before your eyes.   Anyway, once I was satisfied (or so this newbie thought), I put it in the oven to bulk ferment.  The instructions said 60 to 90 minutes (or until doubled in size).  I looked at mine after an hour (about 78F in my oven) and it was more than doubled.  

All in all, I ended up with a dough that was pretty easy to handle and it felt "right" to me; not stiff, very suptle.  Now, since these were going to go into 9x5 loaf pans (first time I've used loaf pans), I didn't think it was THAT important to get the forming done perfectly.  Ah, but that was a newbie error :) 

 Turns out the bread had a nice "oven spring" within the first 10 min or so and, it looked like I hit a home run.  However, one of the loaves basically flattened at the top and the other did so partially.  This was either due to improper forming or possibly over-proofing (or both)? 

This is what the loaves looked like after proofing in the pans (one in stoneware, the other aluminum).  At this point I thought they looked just fine.

Here you can see how the one in the aluminum pan gained some height within the first 10 min of baking

But darn it, not too long after, I took a peek and found it had "collapsed" a bit.  I was pretty disappointed...   (The other one in the stoneware did the same but only on one side).

 Here's what the crumb looked like:

I think the unevenness of the holes in the crumb was just due to my own inexperience at working / forming the dough after bulk fermentation.  Aesthetics aside, the crumb was nice, light and chewy and had a nice "sweetness" to it.  I used "Grandma's Molasses" but not the light variety the recipe called for.  I guess this resulted in a "stronger" flavor of molasses, but I really liked it.  The crust (sprinkled with corn meal) had a nice crunch to it. 

 So, not a "total" failure after all... just need to know how to handle this better the next time. 

Thanks,

Joe G

In my quest to make better bread I have gathered information from almost any resource.  Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice has become a go-to book when I want to bake.  One day I was perusing random websites and I happened upon a blog called "Pinch My Salt".  This blog included a number of amateur bakers making each recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice in order.  I thought this might be a cheaper alternative to making beer considering I do not currently have the funds.

Yesterday afternoon I mixed together the cornmeal and water and let it sit out overnight.  The bowl on the bottom of the picture is about 2 cups of flour, the cornmeal mixture, and yeast.  The other two bowls are pizza dough and a poolish.

I let the soaker/sponge sit out for a couple hours until it was gurgling CO2 at me.  I mixed the sponge with the remaining 2.5 cups flour, 1.5 tsp salt, 1oz shortening and 4oz of molasses .  When I stirred everything together it still seemed too wet, so I mixed in some more flour during the kneading.  the dough was lightly oiled in a bowl and set to ferment for a few hours.  I removed the dough, knocked it down, and formed a couple boules.

I didn't want to make sandwich loaves because I really like free form loaves and the shape of boules.  The final proofing lasted for about an hour before taking them to be scored and baked.  The loaves scored nicely but I lack a peel, as a result I accidently deflated some of the loaf during transfer to the oven.  Thankfully I had a decent amount of oven spring.  

The loaves turned out fine, I can only imagine how they would have looked if I hadn't deflated them, I guess it's time to look into making a peel.  I look forward to the next stage in the BBA challenge and as always look for improvement.

Cheers and Happy Baking

-Matthew

Ok, hope I am doing this right, just making an entry to my original blog. 

I really really was hesitant about making this bread, since normally I don't really care for corn bread all that much.  It's usually to sweet for anything but chili.  Boy was I surprised, it really turned out awesome!  I actually ate a little bit of peanut butter on a piece today, and was again surprised with how much flavor it had and the sweetness was not overwhelming at all.  Here's a couple pictures with a link to more pictures of how I made this bread.  It also has some explanations:

From Anadama

I noticed a while back that the photos seem to have trouble loading form this site, so I am hosting my photos on another site and linking to them.  It seems to fix this problem, and has the added advantage of allowing me to post a lot more pictures in case someone wants a closer look at how I made these.  Next week I will be making the "Alien" bread that my family saw in my book.....

Joanne

I thought I would try creating a blog of my bread making, starting this new year with my new Kitchenaid 600 pro and a new book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I am also determined to learn how to use baker's math, although I find it rather confusing especially when I am so used to looking and feeling the dough to see if it needs more water or flour. 

I made 3 batches of bread this week.  The first was my sourdough using a 100% starter of all purpose flour and water.  Here is a picture of my active starter, plus a link to more pictures of how I feed the starter:

From Feeding Starter

I used this fancy recipe.... 

From Sourdough Batch day 2

What can I say?  Basically when I measured out a cup of flour it gave me 148 grams, and I simply used that as the starting point for my bread.  I've been making this same loaf for years and it works for me.  My newest starter is about 3 months old and really starting to get some good flavor to it.  I have pictures etc of the first days batch here:

Just click on the link for all the pictures and explanations.....   From Sourdough Rolls

Since if you click on Sourdough Rolls above right under the picture, and it takes you to a zillion photos and exactly how I made this bread I thought I would leave it at that.  I made a second batch also, but when I scored the tops I didn't do it well enough and while they turned out nice with good crumb inside I didn't like them as well.  As with all good things, can't have great results every time....

Sidenote:  I love whole wheat bread and used to make sourdough bread using 100% whole wheat, but it upsets my tummy now so I pretty much stick to bread flour and all purpose flour.  I usually only make small rolls, since I make a 1/3 whole wheat for my husband who has trouble with white flours.  I have been thinking of trying the whole wheat recipes again to see if by some miracle I can eat them again. I so miss the taste of a really good whole wheat bread.

More later..... Anadama bread

Thanksgiving is not going as planned; I'm stuck here with a sick and cranky wife.  I made this bread to have something to do more than anything.

I used the Anadama formula from the BBA; with a Southern turn.  I substituted stone ground grits and cane syrup. 

The grits came from an acquaintance of mine that operates a mill.  The next time I see him I plan to inquire as to what kind of wheat he has.  Here is a good article about Mike and his mill.

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/mike_buckner_fielder_s_flour_junction_city_ga_/Content?oid=592428

Having recently become a little weary of what seems like endless work on my sourdough starter and loaves based on Reinhart's formula in BBA, I decided to explore some of his other breads.  With so many people doing the BBA Challenge I decided to start in the beginning since there is much guidance out there for people who wish to make bread from the early chapters.  It has all been very useful and in particular I'd like to thank the Pinch My Salt blog for putting on the BBA Challenge and inspiring so many people to help each other become better bakers:

http://pinchmysalt.com/the-bba-challenge/bba-breads/

My Anadama loaf, which was a big hit with friends and family.

Anadama crumb.

Delicious sticky Greek Celebration Bread.

.....and crumb.

As always, thanks to everyone at TFL for taking some of the guesswork out of my baking!

Summer

Hi all --

I just posted about making the first bread of the BBA Challenge, Reinhart's Anadama.

Check out photos and a recipe at Flour Girl. 

And feel free to join in on the challenge!

Happy baking!

Heather

This weekend I baked Reinhart's Anadama Bread and the Poilane-style Miche featured on the cover of BBA.  Someone mentioned the Anadama recipe in another post, and I remembered making it years ago from a Better Homes recipe.  Needless to say, the BBA recipe is head-and-shoulders above my old one.

Here are some picts of the Anadama Bread:

The Miche was a monster, but a lot of fun to build and bake.  Here it is just before slashing and baking:

And fresh out of the oven:

And finally, what miche photo spread would be complete without...

My humble tribute to Peter Reinhart!!

This being the second time I've baked bread, I decided to try my childhood favorite.

Anadama Bread (from www.anadamabread.com)

Ingredients

½ c. coarse cornmeal
2 T. butter
2 c. boiling water
1 tsp. salt
½ c. unsulphured blackstrap molasses
1 pkg. dried yeast
5 c. unbleached flour

Making it

1. Stir the cornmeal slowly in water the boiling water and let steam over a double boiler for a minimum of one hour. You can make it up and let it sit overnight.

2. Add the butter, molasses, and salt.

3. Cool a bit. When lukewarm, add the yeast dissolved in warm water.

4. Add enough flour to make a stiff bread dough.

5. Knead for 10 minutes

6. Turn into a greased bowl covered with a damp cloth and let sit for 1 - 1½ hours until double in bulk.

7. Shape 2 loaves and place in 2 greased medium bread pans; let rise until double in bulk.

8. Bake in hot 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Note: I baked it @400 for 30 minutes and then 350 for another 20.  

I tried making Anadama Bread from Peter Reinhart's BBA.

I never heard of it before but it sounded interesting.

Here it is:

As you can see it didn't rise.

Mom thinks maybe I should've put more yeast or maybe baking something in the soaker.

I'm willing to blame the scale (horrible old scale...or my measuring cups). I need a new scale but I haven't found a good one to buy locally yet.

There are more pictures here  and my story here.

One day I will try it again but not too soon.

It did taste nice and sour and we liked it but...I don't think this is how it's supposed to look.