BBA Challenge & more!

The last part of July was hectic, alas, I was not able to participate in this month's Daring Bakers or Daring Cooks challenges. This month I'll have more time, and the challenges are too tempting to pass on!

One thing I was able to squeeze in this month was Greek Celebration Bread the next recipe in the BBA Challenge. I admit, I always admired this bread each time I pulled the book of the shelf, but never had any motivation to try it, as too many other breads are on my list of 'regulars'.

I loved the feel of the dough, though it was a little more wet than I expected it to be. The addition of the spices really made me look forward to the final product! I added bourbon soaked golden raisins and cranberries. Because I didn't think to set aside a portion of the dough for the decorative element of the Christomophos, I formed the dough into a boule.



I have to admit, the bread smelled AWESOME, it looked AWESOME. The taste and texture where disappointing. The aroma of the spices was misleading, there wasn't a lot of flavor to the bread. The bread was surprisingly dry - even with butter or jam spread on slices, it seemed like eating cardboard.

This is the first recipe of PH's that I've not liked.

BBA Challenge - Anadama Bread

One of my favorite cooking books is Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  I recently discovered a group who was baking their way through this amazing compilation of bread and decided to give it a try!  The BBA Challenge was brought to us by Nicole of Pinch My Salt.  

Anadama Bread is the first recipe of the book.  It's an old New England Bread that appears in many books on bread.  I've tried it in the past and didn't care for the consistency or taste, so passed on making this when I initially bought The BBA.  I believe that previous attempts with different recipes went south because the soaker of corn meal was only a few hours and/or an overwhelming amount of molasses was used.  After letting the soaker rest overnight, the cornmeal had an appealing fragrance and was fluffy.  

The recipe was very easy and straight forward, no unusual ingredients or instruments needed to make this.  The dough was amazing, supple and easy to knead by hand (since the hubs has yet to come through on his "I'll buy you a new KA mixer" proclamation which convinced me to sell my trusty mixer back in AK, LOL).

Since I couldn't find my normal sized bread pans, I split the dough into 5 small loafs.  The finished bread definitely turned my opinion of this bread around.  It wasn't dense, dry, or overpowered by the molasses.  

My only complaint was that I couldn't remember what the heck I did with my stupid bread pans so that we could enjoy this with the BLTs we made for dinner last night!