#anadamabread

Our anadama recipe has improved considerably since when we were teenagers, and it has remained our favorite bread to make. These days when we bake it, it reminds us of New England and of home and of our very nice family members eating our bread and telling us it was every bit as good as we thought it was.

Anadama is excellent as toast or sandwich bread and it’s one of the greatest peanut butter vehicles of all time.

anadama bread (yields one loaf)

1/2 cup stone-ground cornmeal

1 cup unsweetened alternative milk (we usually do oat or almond)

2 tablespoons vegan butter, plus 1 melted teaspoon for brushing on top

3 to 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 envelope - or 2 1/4 tsp - instant yeast

1/3 cup lukewarm warm water

5 tablespoons dark molasses

In a small sauce pan, heat the milk and 2 tablespoons butter until almost at a simmer. Whisk in the cornmeal and remove from heat.

Either by hand, or using the hook attachment on a standing mixer, combine the flour, salt and cornmeal mush.

Whisk the yeast into the lukewarm water. Stir in the molasses.

Add the yeast/molasses to the flour mixture. If you’re using a standing mixer, start at a low speed until the dough comes together and then mix on medium for about 10 minutes. Stop the machine and remove the dough from the hook and reposition it one or two times, or as needed. If you are working with your hands, kneed vigorously on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes.

Shape the dough into a smooth ball. Oil a bowl and place the bread into the bowl smooth-side-down and then flip it over. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp cloth. Allow to rise in a warm place for 60 to 90 minutes. 

In the summer, you can let your dough rise just about anywhere, but in the winter you may have to be more creative. Try laying some folded newspaper on top of a radiator and setting your bowl of dough on that. If you’d like to use your oven as a warm place for your bread to rise, simply let it heat up to 200 degrees and then turn it off and wait 10 minutes.

Once your dough has risen, kneed it slightly and shape it into a loaf. You’ll want to do a bread-shaping move called “winding the clock.” Set your bread on the counter, start at one edge and roll it up into a bit of a loaf-shaped coil. Then put that coiled dough log into a greased bread pan and press it down to roughly fill the space. Re-cover and let it rise while you boil water and pre-heat the oven. 

Place a bread pan containing about 2 cups of boiled water on a rack in the lowest position in the oven.

Melt about a teaspoon of butter and brush it over the loaf. Sprinkle a dusting of cornmeal on top if you wish.

Bake at 350 for 50 mins.

We usually (gently) dump the bread out of the pan and onto a wire rack right away.