Bread Machine (211 page)
1
1
/
2
- OR 2-POUND-LOAF MACHINES
1 large egg
1
1
/
4
cups buttermilk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1
/
3
cup sugar
1 cup fine-grind yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons toasted wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking soda
1
/
2
teaspoon baking powder
1
/
2
teaspoon salt
Place the ingredients in the pan according to the order in the manufacturer’s instructions. Set the crust for medium, if your machine offers crust control for this cycle, and program for the Quick Bread/Cake cycle; press Start. The batter will be thick. When the machine beeps at the end of the cycle, check the loaf for doneness. The cornbread is done when it shrinks slightly from the sides of the pan, the sides are dark brown, and the top is firm to a gentle pressure when touched with your finger. A toothpick or metal skewer will come out clean when inserted into the center of the bread.
When the bread is done baking, immediately remove the pan from the machine. Let the bread stand in the pan for 15 minutes before gently turning it out, right side up, to cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature, the day it is baked, cut into thick slices.
T
his traditional New England bread is usually made with yeast, but combing through old recipes, I found a quick version. Anadama was a staple for the colonial home baker who had cornmeal mush and molasses as daily fare. The melted butter was brushed on with a clean feather, a common tool in the early American baker’s kitchen. This bread is a wonderful surprise—one of the best breakfast breads, nutritious, and it tastes ever so good. Eat it fresh or gently toasted.
1
1
/
2
- OR 2-POUND-LOAF MACHINES
1
2
/
3
cups buttermilk
1
/
2
cup light molasses
1
/
4
cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1
1
/
4
cups whole wheat flour
1
1
/
4
cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1
/
2
cup fine or medium-grind yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Place the ingredients in the pan according to the order in the manufacturer’s instructions. Set the crust for dark, if your machine offers crust control for this setting, and program for the Quick Bread/Cake cycle; press Start. The batter will be thick and smooth. When the machine beeps at the end of the cycle, check the loaf for doneness. The bread is done when it shrinks slightly from the sides of the pan, the sides are dark brown, and the top is firm to a gentle pressure when touched with your finger. A toothpick or metal skewer will come out clean when inserted into the center of the bread.
When the bread is done, immediately remove the pan from the machine. Let the bread stand in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it out, right side up, to cool completely on a rack. Brush the top with some melted butter. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.
JAMS,
PRESERVES,
AND CHUTNEYS
IN YOUR BREAD
MACHINE
H
omemade preserves have started to come back into favor during the last decade. They are the best way to deliver the fragrance, flavor, and character of summer’s fresh fruit to your table long after the season has passed. Despite the abundance of good commercial jams, making your own homemade jams remains a gratifying and rewarding experience. With a small twist on grandmother’s art, making jam in the bread machine is an excellent way to “put up” small-batch jams, fruit butters, and chutneys, without lots of stirring (you don’t even have to stir to dissolve the sugar!), fussing with a thermometer, or sterilizing of jars. All you have to do is combine the fruit, sugar, and pectin, and the machine mixes and slowly cooks it. Simply pour the hot jam into clean jars, and store it in the refrigerator for as long as two months, although it will probably get eaten much sooner. Even if you are a first-time preserver, in about an hour and a half you can have two to three cups of exceptional, chunky, fresh-fruit jam, and the chance to partake in the cuisine of nostalgia, rediscovering a taste for this wonderful food.
Jams, preserves, and marmalades are based on ancient techniques for preserving fruit. Every country with abundant fruit has a culinary history of making sweet preserves. The interaction of the fruit, sugar, acid, and pectin in the correct proportions has long been of primary concern. The right balance is what makes the mixture jell. For this reason, working with sugar used to be in the realm of the apothecaries. The prophet and physician Nostradamus made colorful fruit preserves for Catherine de Medici in the Middle Ages. In Greece, jams, known as
glyko
, are eaten by the spoonful from bowls, followed by a drink of water, then a drink of liqueur. They are delicacies that were once considered medicinal preparations.
Old preserve recipes remind us of regional specialties, harking back to the days when home preserving was a necessity, and a practical way to use up all the fruit from a home orchard or garden. There is damson cheese, a thick, concentrated fruit puree rather than an actual cheese, still a specialty in England and Europe today; or a sweet-and-sour pumpkin chutney with vinegar, peppercorns, and gingerroot; green tomato chutney, of course, to save the last tomatoes when the first frost hits; jams like gooseberry and mulberry, if you could get to the fruit before the birds did; or muscadine or scuppernong jam, the Southern alternative to grape jam.
Here I have included recipes for most of the basic jams and preserves, all made using the Jam cycle on your machine. You may substitute fruits of similar character in some of the recipes, for example blackberries or olallieberries in the Fresh Strawberry Jam (but taste these while adding the sugar to adjust for differing tartness), plums in the recipe for apricot jam, and nectarines in the recipes for the peach jam. Do not substitute an entirely different type of fruit in a recipe, as different fruits have different amounts of pectin and acid, and I have added the right proportions of pectin and lemon juice in the recipes to produce jams with substance and proper flavor. I also include recipes for apple butters, ketchup, and various chutneys, which are wonderful as festive condiments, bread or sandwich spreads, accompaniments to grilled or roasted meats, or as flavorful spreads for appetizer toasts. Though the ingredients may vary, all these items are made by the same slow-cooking, constant-stirring process that the bread machine handles so well.