Anadama bread is a traditional bread of New England made with white flour, cornmeal, molasses and sometimes rye flour.

I'm still trying to bake my way through the Bread Baker's Apprentice and, since I keep getting sidetracked by my desire to improve my baguettes and sourdough, I've decided to go through the book alphabetically and tackle each bread at least once. It isn't as crazy as it sounds. The book organizes its recipes alphabetically and I am still debating whether I want to bake variations on the different recipes in there (how much Greek celebration bread do you need?). The real dream is to polish off the BBA and then tackle Michel Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry.

Anyway, the Anadama bread was pretty straight forward. The recipe calls for a cornmeal soaker (my first) and I have to say, soakers obviously hold a lot of potential, but this one was boring. I just mixed cornmeal and water and let it sit. In fact, the bread was delicious and easy to make, which I both like and dislike. It is a simple loaf bread, so you don't have to do much shaping and you obviously don't have to score it. The molasses is present but not overpowering and the vegetable shortening gives the bread a spongy, almost cake-like chewiness. The cornmeal soaker softened the cornmeal, but its texture still stood out in the bread, giving each bite an interesting and enjoyable mouthfeel. The crust was nice out of the oven, but since I didn't get it out until 11:30 or so, I only had one slice of it fresh. The bread is keeping well because, like most sandwich breads, the crust doesn't need to be preserved and thus the bread can be stored in plastic wrap. The nicest thing about this bread is that it was quick to make. With the exception of the soaker, this is a one day bread and no special gluten development techniques were necessary.

Next up: bagels.