We are off and running with the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge !

1st up, Anadama Bread. Lots of cornmeal, lots of molasses.  Let's get baking! (oh, and still getting used to the new camera).

1st step was an overnight soak of 6 oz cornmeal mixed with a cup of water.  This soaked mix gets combined with bread flour, yeast, and more water, and allowed sit for about an hour to begin fermenting.


Fermentation and photos don't go together well, apparently.

Next, mix in some more bread flour, salt, unsalted butter (when given a recipe option for shortening or butter, I go butter), and what seemed like LOTS of molasses.  4 ounces.  6 tablespoons.  I used Brer Rabbit, Mild for this recipe.  Time to knead!  Or in this case, use my KitchenAid mixer to knead for me.

About 7 minutes later and we get this lovely golden beast:


It passed "the windowpane test" which helps show when the bread was kneaded properly (or enough I suppose), and it  should  register between 77 and 81 degrees.  ahhh.  80.



Time to put this into my dough bowl and wait for it to rise.  It should double.  Book says 90 minutes, but I'm banking on a bit longer.  I can't recall now how long it took, but it wasn't too much past 90 minutes to double in size.


oooo fluffy!



Here's where the tough part came in.  The recipe says to divide evenly and put into 2 9x5 inch pans or 3 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pans.  As luck would have it, I have 3 pans.  Not all of equal size though!  1 larger and 2 smaller.  time to eyeball the dough and divide it up as best I can.



These were shaped and placed into the bread pans to proof.  At this point I should have misted the tops with water and dusted with cornmeal.  I didn't do this step until after they had risen to the tops of the bread pans (which took about 45 minutes longer than it should have)


These now go into a nice toasty 350 degree oven, on a sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes, rotated, and baked for another 20-30 minutes.  I baked mine for an extra 25 minutes, and registered about 203 degrees in the center when I pulled them out.   Initial taste impressions = great!  Especially with butter