Anadama Bread

Anadama bread is a traditional yeast bread from New England flavored with cornmeal and molasses that originated on the North Shore of Boston. The Cape Ann towns of Rockport and Gloucester are among those that claim to have invented it. These stories, traceable in written form only to the nineteenth century, are repeated by local restaurants and bakeries that serve Anadama bread.

Along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, many bakeries make Anadama bread which can be eaten fresh and warm or saved to toast and eat later. It makes an excellent base for French toast, and complements a variety of foods as well.

This bread is a wonderful loaf bread full of complex flavors and a hearty texture. Although it appears as though it may be a wheat bread, don’t be fooled! The dark coloring is a result of mild molasses in the dough, which provides a slightly sweet flavor to the bread. In addition to the molasses, cornmeal is also added, which gives the crust a nice crunch and the bread a full and hearty texture. The resulting loaf is a soft sandwich-style bread that pairs well with just as well with lunch meat as it does with your classic peanut butter and jelly. For breakfast, layer on butter and your favorite jelly.

1 cup scalded milk
1 cup boiling water
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup oil or butter
1/2 cup molasses (can substitute honey)
2 tsp. salt
2 cakes yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup water
6 cups flour
Melted butter, cornmeal and salt for brushing and sprinkling on top before baking, if desired

Mix the milk and water together in a large bowl. Slowly stir in the cornmeal. Add the oil or butter, molasses and salt and stir until well mixed. Allow to cool until warm. Mix in yeast solution. Beat in the flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is too thick to mix. Turn out on floured board and knead the dough well for about 8 minutes, adding flour as necessary, until the dough is tacky, but not sticky.

Put dough in buttered bowl and turn so that the topside of the dough is buttered. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about an hour. Butter two bread pans.

Punch down dough. Turn out on floured board and knead dough for about 3 minutes. Roll dough into a large rectangle and roll it up to form a bread loaf. Pinch seams and tuck under ends and place in the prepared bread pans. Shaping the loaf in this way creates surface tension so that the gas from the yeast the dough expands up and out evenly. Cover and let rise until double in size or for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven 375 degrees F. Using a sharp knife, make two or three slashes diagonally across the top of the loaf to prevent the crust from cracking. Brush with butter and sprinkle with cornmeal and salt, if desired. Bake bread for about 40 - 50 minutes or until the bread is a lovely dark brown. Remove bread from pan and let cool on a rack.

Makes 2 loaves