Anadama Bread Recipe
This Anadama bread recipe contains cornmeal and molasses. You read that right! Cornmeal and molasses. Give this classic New England bread recipe a try. I think you’ll like it as much as I do.
Last Updated July 10, 2024 – Originally Published May 23, 2018
Featured Comment
We tried this bread and it is now a STAPLE! It’s so delicious. Hearty, but slightly sweet. It works for sweet or savory applications. It makes the absolute best cinnamon toast ever. ~ Judy
When I first saw this recipe, I was a little dubious. Molasses and cornmeal?
All doubts disappeared after tasting Anadama bread. It’s a little sweet and the cornmeal gives it an interesting texture. Plus, I love its dark brown color.
How Did Anadama Bread Get Its Name?
Legend has it that in the early days of New England, a fisherman became frustrated with his wife’s cooking.
The wife, named Anna, consistently made cornmeal porridge for supper. They at it all the time.
One day the husband decided that he couldn’t take it anymore. In an attempt to get some variety, he added flour and yeast to the kettle of cornmeal porridge.
He mixed it all up and put it in the oven to bake. While it cooked he was heard to mutter, “Anna, damn her!”
And that is how Anadama Bread came to be.
Where Does Molasses Come From?
Technically, molasses is a thick, sticky liquid that’s made during the sugar-making process. If we’re talking taste . . . molasses is sweet, a little smokey and a little savory. I really like it. I also love the dark brown flavor it gives to bread.
Getting back to the technical side of things, sugar cane juice is extracted from the sugar cane plant. The juice is then boiled to concentrate it, promoting sugar crystallization.
Light molasses comes from the first boiling of the sugar syrup. It’s lighter in flavor and color. If a recipe doesn’t specify which type of molasses to use, I recommend using light molasses.
Dark molasses comes from the second boiling of the sugar syrup. It’s darker and not as sweet as light molasses. It’s typically used in things like baked beans.
Blackstrap molasses is the darkest and most intense variety of molasses. It has a bitter aftertaste. I’ve seen a few bread recipes that use this type of molasses, but it’s pretty rare. Because of it’s strong flavor profile, I would NOT recommend it for this recipe.
Dark molasses is preferred for this recipe, but light molasses would work too.
What is Cornmeal?
The short story is that cornmeal is a coarse flour made from dried corn.
Most commercial cornmeal is made from either yellow or white dent corn. Dent corn is a type of field corn named for its dented kernels. Most of the corn grown in the United States is either yellow dent corn or a closely related variety.
In the United States, it’s common to see steel-ground yellow cornmeal. With this product, the husk and germ of the corn kernel has been almost completely removed. The good news is that makes the cornmeal shelf-stable. The bad news is that it’s not as nutritious.
If you’d like more nutritious cornmeal, look for “whole grain” cornmeal. That’s typically stone-ground and is a coarser type of cornmeal. While this cornmeal is more nutritious, it’s more perishable.
If you like Anadama bread, you might also enjoy beer bread. Beer bread is hearty and has an “old-world” flavor. The loaf is soft and chewy with a crunchy crust.
How to Make Anadama Bread in the Bread Machine
I make the below recipe in my two-pound machine. Note that you’ll be using the basic setting with medium crust.
Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first. With my machine, a Zojirushi, I add the liquid first. (Learn more about what bread machines I recommend.)
Check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. Pop the top of the bread machine and look at the dough. It should be a smooth, round ball.
If the dough is too dry add liquid a teaspoon at a time until it looks right. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks good.
Anadama Bread Recipe for the Bread Machine
Again, this recipe is for a two-pound machine. Use the basic setting with medium crust.
1 cup water
¼ cup molasses, dark preferred
3 cups bread flour
¼ cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
See below for metric measurements, as well as nutrition information, for this Anadama bread recipe for the bread machine.
Anadama Bread Recipe
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup (236.59 ml) water
- 1/4 cup (84.25 g) molasses dark preferred
- 3 cups (375 g) bread flour
- 1/4 cup (39.75 g) cornmeal
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
Instructions
- This is a recipe for a two-pound bread machine. Use the basic, white setting with medium crust for this recipe.
- Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which order to add ingredients to your bread machine. With my machine, I add the liquids first.
- Check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. It should be a smooth, round ball.
- If the dough is too dry add liquid a teaspoon at a time until it looks right. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks right.
Notes
Nutrition
All information presented within this site is intended for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and any nutritional information on breadmachinediva.com should only be used as a general guideline. This information is provided as a courtesy and there is no guarantee that the information will be completely accurate. I try to provide accurate information to the best of my ability; however these figures should still be considered estimates.
