Does anyone else sometimes think that Alton Brown has just a tiny bit too much time on his hands? Now, you all know how much respect and admiration I have for the man, but last night, on the "A Cake on Every Plate" episode of Good Eats, he was wearing a perfectly tailored aluminum foil suit! =)
This New England bread has a story behind its name.
A New England farmer had a lazy wife named Anna who would serve him the same tiresome dish of cornmeal porridge every day. One day he became disgusted and decided to take matters into his own hands. He began adding whatever he could find in the kitchen to his porridge: some flour, some mead, and some molasses. He then shaped it into a loaf and threw it on the fire. When he finally tasted his creation he decided he could easily get through life without his good-for-nothing wife, and exclaimed, "Anna, damn her!"
It shouldn't come as any great surprise to anyone who knows me and/or reads this blog that this is one of my favorite breads -- one of its star ingredients is, of course, cornmeal! And really, what's wrong with a loaf of bread sweetened with a good, healthy dose of molasses?
I have a few different recipes for this bread between my many bread books. I didn't make Tony's version today, though, because it calls for lemon juice, and I am fresh out. Instead, I turned to Beth Hensperger's "The Pleasure of Whole-Grain Breads." I actually don't use this book very often because a lot of the recipes call for ingredients I just don't keep around... but today, Beth came through for me. Here's her recipe for...
Bread Machine Whole-Wheat New England Anadama Bread makes 1 1-1/2 pound loaf
Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups water
1/4 cup molasses
1-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/3 cup medium-grind yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast
1. Place all of the ingredients in the pan according ot the manufacturer's instructions. Set crust on medium and program for the basic or whole-wheat cycle; press start.
2. After the baking cycle ends, remove the bread from the pan and place on a rack to cool to room temperature.
The only major change I made was with the flour: I used one cup unbleached white bread flour, one cup whole-wheat bread flour, and one cup stoneground whole-wheat flour. I also used 2 teaspoons of yeast, because I had active dry and not bread machine yeast. And, as always, I baked it in the oven instead of in my machine... at 350 for about 45 minutes.
This is a wonderful, soft, slightly sweet bread with a great texture (gotta love that cornmeal!). It works well for both sweet and savory sandwiches -- my favorites being pb& j and grilled cheese! It also makes fabulous toast. Breakfast tomorrow will be a couple slices of this, toasted, and topped with European-style butter and plum jam. Mmmmmm... plum jam...
On the 1st Day of Cookies, Food Network Gave to Me...
... nothing.
On the 2nd Day of Cookies, Food Network gave to me...
... nothing.
On the 3rd Day of Cookies, Food Network gave to me...
... nothing.
Do you see where I'm going with this one? I signed up for Food TV's "Twelve Days of Cookies" newsletter a couple weeks ago, as I have for the past several years, but something's different this year. As in, I'm not getting the e-mail. So I'm sending out this somewhat pathetic cry for help: is there anyone out there who is getting the newletters, and would be willing to forward them to me? I would so greatly appreciate it, and would gladly return the favor somehow, someday. I'm going to try to sign up again, and see if they start coming, but I think I've missed at least half already. I have three years' worth of cookie recipes so far and would hate for my collection to be incomplete! Thanks! =)
1 Chilly New England Night (snow optional)
2 Mugs Hot Spiced Apple Cider
1 Bowl Roasted Chestnuts* 1 Roaring Fire (in the fireplace, of course!)
1 Big Comfy Couch
2 Good Books
Combine ingredients with one cuddly boyfriend and enjoy.
*Roasted Chestnuts:
I spent quite a bit of time researching this process last winter, and found lots of different methods, from painfully simple to exceedingly complicated. I chose the simplest "recipe" I could find, and simplified it even more: buy the fattest, heaviest chestnuts you can find (so you know they're good!). I found some amazingly beautiful ones at Wild Oats in Portland last week. Score an "X" in the shell of each nut, making sure to get all the way through the shell. I use a utility knife with a blade you can lock into several positions, extended only about 1/4". The shells get cut through, but the meat barely gets touched. Place scored chestnuts in a roasting pan, and roast at about 450 (yes, I use the oven, not the over-cliched open fire...) until the shells burst open and "smile" at you. If you're really lucky, the exposed nutmeat will be a bit charred and caramelized. Yum! These are especially good when they fill your coat pockets on a cool, rainy spring day in Paris, and you pop them one at a time as you wander the streets of the city... or eaten from a paper cone on Rome's Spanish steps on a sunny Easter morning after attending the Pope's outdoor mass at St. Peter's... but a bowl on the coffee table on a cold, wintry night is pretty sweet, too.
For yesterday's cookie baking frenzy, Kev and I searched allrecipes.com for easy recipes with short ingredient lists. This house only gets used part time, and the kitchen is just not as stocked as mine... especially for a baking freak like me. I was dying to bake something, but didn't want to have to buy a ton of ingredients. We were lucky enough to find two recipes that perfectly fit the bill. First up were coconut macaroons. My mom used to make these every Christmas when I was a kid, but I somehow had never made them myself... until yesterday. The recipe we found was simple, and seemed familiar: One 14-oz package flaked coconut, one 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk, and one teaspoon vanilla extract. We went to the store and found 7-oz bags of sweetened coconut. We grabbed two of those and a can of sweetened condensed milk, and headed home. We mixed everything together, dropped spoonfuls of the batter onto greased cookie sheets, and meticulously applied red, green, and white sprinkles. We put them into a 350 oven and baked them for 20 minutes. I ran across the street to Kev's grandmother's house while they baked, so Kev was in charge of timing. When I got back, I pulled from the oven a cookie sheet covered with puddles of sticky coconut goo. Eeewww!!! What happened? We followed the directions. How could such a simple recipe be so easy to screw up? I won't even share a picture, It's too ugly.
We tasted some of the goo, and I thought it was pretty good, though ungiftable (we had planned to deliver plates of cookie to Kev's grandmother and aunt when they were done). Kev said "it's OK, but just too sweet for me." A light bulb went off in my head. "Too sweet?" Ding ding ding! We must need unsweetened coconut for these! I decided that the sweetened coconut must have added enough sugar for extra melting, extra caramelization, and extra gooeyness. Off to the health food store for some unsweetened coconut... which, I gotta tell you, in bulk, is a heck of a lot cheaper than the prepackaged sweetened stuff! The rest of the assembly process was repeated, right down to my anal retentive sprinkles application. Each macaroon, of course, had to have a good balance of red, green, and white. We did a test batch of just three cookies, thinking we could add flour to the batter if they puddled again. 20 minutes later... let's just say that no flour was necessary! We achieved macaroon perfection...
That picture shows off our lovely sprinkles skills, but I really like this one, which happened completely unintentionally:
And just in case you really want to know, here's the official recipe for these macaroons.
