Toasty: Anadama Bread with Quince Jelly

A few months ago, I received a whole bunch of jams and jellies from a few different canning queens. I’ve been dying to try them all out, but with all the traveling, I didn’t have a chance until now.

I think the best way to try out homemade jams and jellies is with homemade breads. And there is just nothing more comforting than homemade bread with jam.

So over the next few weeks, I’m going to be baking lots of different breads to go with lots of different jams and jellies. And I’ll be sharing lots of recipes and photos with you too!

First up: Anadama Bread with {French} Quincy Jelly.

The national president of the ICA (who happens to be my traveling partner on this trip to Austria!) spends some of her summer weeks in France, where she makes lots of jams and jellies. She brought back a jar of quince jelly for me to try and I thought Anadama bread, a classic New England brown bread, might be the perfect partner.

See? Even the label’s written in French! Quince is a strange, hard fruit that’s looks like a cross between a pear and an apple. Making jelly out of it involves cooking it with water until it’s the consistency of apple sauce, and then straining it. Quince makes great jelly because it already has a lot of pectin in it.

And Anadama Bread is perfect toasting bread – it’s made with cornmeal and molasses, so it’s a little sweet and really moist.

Here’s a great recipe for quince jelly. It looks like it has a lot of steps, but it makes the prettiest rose-colored jelly.

And this, is the Anadama bread recipe from my childhood. My mom used to make it in a huge, heavy white bowl with a pink and blue stripe. That was the bread bowl.

Anadama Bread

1 cup corn meal (I used polenta from the health food store)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup molasses (you can also find molasses at the health food store in Ireland)
2 packages yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
5 – 5/1/2 cups plain flour

Mix cornmeal, molasses, boiling water, salt and butter in a bowl until the butter is melted. Stir and cool the mixture until it’s lukewarm. Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water. Add the yeast to the molasses mixture with 1 1/2 cups flour and stir to incorporate until the flour isn’t streaky anymore. Add in the rest of the flour and knead until it’s mixed and not sticky. Let the dough rise for about an hour in a clean, greased bowl in a warm place until it doubles in size. Punch the dough down and divide it into two loaves. Let the loaves rise in bread tins for another half hour. Bake at 375F/190C for 35-40 minutes.

Let the bread cool (at least a little) before you slice it. Top it with butter and jelly. Yum.