Anadama Cornbread

From the amazing Christmas gift of last year, Brad and I have wanted to use a recipe to make an Anadama Cornbread. Now, you may ask, what is so special about this cornbread? Isn't it it just a bunch cornmeal, milk, sugar, and egg baked in a skillet? Not this special and delectable treat. Anadama is not a southern version cornbread. There is actually more flour than cornmeal. It's a 5:1 ratio! 

The finished Anadama Cornbread just out of the oven!

It is so different because it originates in New England. It is more of a Thanksgiving harvest bread as opposed to something tasty dipped in chili. It has a reasonable amount of molasses in the dough and no sugar. It is really good when it is served with pumpkin butter. I think that this fall we are going to make our own versions and add in a few awesome things... like pumpkin pie spice!

I love the color of this bread!

The trickiest part about making this bread, is that it does not want to rise well. We had to coax it. We turned the heat on to 80 degrees (which is difficult to handle when it is summer) and placed the bowl over the vent. We leave it in a bowl to rise for 2 hours. Then, we knocked it back, shaped it, and let it rise for ANOTHER TWO HOURS. What a pain.

At the beginning of the first two hour rising process

.... and after two hours, that's all we got!

The good news is that it was worth the four hours of rising and the ten minutes of constant kneading. If you ever had a chance for some, get a nice warm slice, spread with pumpkin butter and drink a hot cup of coffee.

A well-deserved dessert!