That berry "bread” project did help get a fire lit under my ass, in classic ADHD style.
I've been meaning to make some more bread anyway, and I haven't had anything like Anadama bread in a good while. We have absolutely no connection to New England, but my mom discovered it when she was on a breadmaking kick--and got me hooked because mmm, corny. We did both prefer it made light on the molasses or with a smidgen of honey instead, which is probably some kind of sacrilege. Here I've got either Scandinavian dark syrup (used similarly a lot, including for breads!) or honey to work with.
I also still have lees left in the fridge (still looking and smelling good) from that part-cornmeal sake batch a while back.
You might see where this is going.
About to put together a starter, using some buckwheat and finely ground corn flours.
I was intending to go lazy on the cleanup and just stir it up in the jar. But, then I thought better of it and grabbed another bowl to wash, because it is so much easier to mix that way. This is just eyeballed off a couple of globs of lees scooped out on that eating tablespoon, around a cup of water to get it like a grainy thinnish pancake batter, and enough mostly buckwheat flour to get it to this consistency.
That honey jar is going to be a bigger bitch to wash out, but it's what we had clean of about the size I wanted.
This starter is looking pretty thick, but it'll thin itself out pretty quick once the yeast gets going. A decent bit of those solids are also from the lees, and already fermented as much as they're going to. The residual koji enzymes will probably break down some of the flour starches more too, and make it runnier.
Some rough inspirations I'm working from here:
Sourdough Anadama Bread is a classic hearty New England loaf bread made with cornmeal and molasses. It has a nutty sweetness that's great se
In New England, Anadama bread is a simple loaf of flour, cornmeal, yeast, and molasses, great for sandwiches and soup.
Anadama bread has been a New England mainstay for generations. This version substitutes gluten-free flour for regular all-purpose but keeps
Though I have to say that the proportions on the last one do sound a bit off. I also plan to use psyllium husk instead of the xanthan gum to help stand in for the usual gluten, and probably some kefir/buttermilk.
Yes, I am flying by the seat of my pants over here. Besides just being the person I am, you really don't have much other choice with a lot of GF baking. Would I necessarily recommend this approach to anyone without much experience at it? Not really.
But yeah, by now even most of the fails turn out at least as good as anything I could find outside of a decent specialist bakery. Which says an unfortunate amount about the quality of a lot of commercially available GF baked goods, and maybe not so much about my own baking skills. My stuff is generally made with more nutritious ingredients, at any rate.
