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I can't begin to tell you how lovely this bread was. It was fragrant, and the subtle taste of honey and spice was just amazing.
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Adam bubbling away
So here it starts again with the wild yeast being fed and producing many carbon  gases.

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finished dough
The dough is completely mixed with all the ingredients:
flour, yeast, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, orange zest, honey, olive oil, raisins, and dates. It is left to bulk ferment for about 90mins or so.

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proofed dough
The dough is separted after bulk rising into 3 loaves and left to rise again until it doubles in size. here they are in the oven ready to bake.

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beautiful bread
Here are the loaves hot from the oven before the glaze with honey and orange zest.

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Crumb
Ahhhhh... Wish you could taste this... so yummy!

 
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The story behind Anadama Bread is wonderful: "A fisherman who had a lazy wife came home one day and was tired of the same old porridge made of corn mush and molasses. He decided to take matters in his own hand and added yeast and flour into his meal and baked delicious bread in which he declared: 'Anna, damn her!' "
This bread turned out beautifully. It rose higher than almost any other bread that I'd made, and the taste-- absolutely delicious molasses flavor. Because I am baking exclusively with wild yeast, I knew there would be a bit more rise than expected, but the oven spring was incredible!
The crumb had a lovely crunchy but soft texture. This is an excellent sandwich bread-- especially for PBJ!

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Adam-- My Wild Yeast
First, I add the yeast and flour and water and let stand for overnight to get the yeast to activate. In the meanwhile, I soaked the cornmeal overnight also.

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Mixing all the ingredients
I next use the dough hook and knead the remainder of the flour and other ingredients together until dough is very elastic, about 10 minutes, or so.

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1st bulk rise
So, the dough has now doubled in bulk

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Divided dough into 3 pieces
The actual recipe said the divide in two and make 2 loaves, but, my bread was so risen, I thought I could get 3 loaves out of it.

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Proofing in the loaf pans
After going into the bread pans I thought I made a mistake in dividing it into 3 pieces. (they looked a little puny)

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Ready for the oven
No mistake-- they rose nicely. :)

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Finished bread
Wow! what a beautiful spring from the wild yeast.

 
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I have to admit, I have always been intimidated by the deliciously tangy and chewy taste and textures of sourdough breads. Although I'd known that these breads were made using a wild yeast of just flour and water, I never dreamed I could be successful at my own home-grown version of one-- until now. I recently got a copy of Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor, and made a wonderful bubbly mother starter which I have growing vigorously in my fridge (I have named him Adam by the way). So, I decided to tackle a loaf using  nothing but wild yeast to see how active the culture could be. The bread turned out to be wonderfully chewy and tangy on the inside and brown and crusty on the outside. The crumb was fine, but not too dense with nice sized holes. Nic and I gobbled almost the whole loaf in one sitting!


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I was so thrilled with the results of this yeast, that the next day, I made some pita/naan type bread also. And let me tell you that it was soooooo much better than the store bought ones! They also didn't last through to the next day.


So, now I have taken on the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge where I am joining home bakers across the globe in baking through all of the recipes in Peter's first book: 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice'(BBA), but using only 'Adam' as my leaving agent. Although I am a bit late in the game for joining "officially", It seems like an excellent exercise for my home baking journey.