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.

  [1]

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

[2]

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).

[3]

 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. 

[4]

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

Thanks,

Joe G