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Fair BreadAugust 18, 2010 Last summer was so cool that I didn't take the flannel sheets off my bed till late June. Summer did pay a brief visit in mid-August, and the day before the fair was hot hot hot. The bread I was baking for the fair rose so fast the texture didn't feel right, and my attempts to slow it down (place pans in a bath of cold water, or even in the refrigerator) didn't help. I wound up not entering any bread at all. This year I decided to make two different breads. That way surely one would be worth entering, right? This summer has been hot hot hot more often than not, though today has been moderate enough. Making two breads the day before the fair is no big deal. I used to do it all the time, when there were two yeast bread categories, light and dark. As of last year there's only one, and you can only enter once in each category. So yesterday morning I took out my sourdough starter and whisked it in a bowl with a cup and a half of unbleached white flour and a cup of very warm water. Last night I poured half the bubbly batter into its Mason jar home and returned it to the fridge. To the other half I added a cup and a half of warm beer (Beck's); half a small onion, well chopped; some salt; a couple tablespoons of soupy butter; and about three cups of flour, half unbleached white and half whole wheat. I whisked them well together and put the batter to bed covered with a (used) sheet of waxed paper and a dish towel. I also measured (rather haphazardly) into a medium-sized saucepan half a cup of stone-ground corn meal, two generous dollops of dark molasses, two cups of tap water, a couple more tablespoons of soupy butter, some salt, and the last of my juice-sweetened dried cranberries (I just ordered another five pounds from my neighbor's co-op). I covered the pot and set it on low heat. After it bubbled slowly for a while and started to thicken, I took it off the burner and put it to bed too. This morning, after Travvy and I got back from our walk, I turned my typing table back into a bread-kneading table and went to work. The sourdough bread had already had one rising in batter form, so after 15 or 20 minutes of kneading it was ready to loaf. No loafing for me, however: I poured and scraped the corn meal and molassest mixture into my big bread bowl (Travvy got to lick the pot), dumped over it the last of a jar of dried yeast and some warm water, then started working in flour, alternating unbleached white with whole wheat. It rose once in the bowl and again in the loaf pans -- ever so considerately, the Anadama (that's what we call corn meal and molasses bread here in New England) bread fit into the same pans I'd used for the sourdough. The short version is that both breads came out great. Deciding which one gets to go to the fair has been tough tough tough. Here they are:
The dark ones are Anadama; the light ones are sourdough beer and onion. After much hem-and-hawing, I cut into the larger sourdough loaf (second from left), spread it with more soupy butter, and ate it. Perfect. The larger Anadama is now in my freezer. I haven't 100% decided which of the other two is going to the fair, but I think the nod will go to the smaller sourdough loaf at far right. I get to deliver it to the Ag Hall tomorrow morning. Wish us luck.
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