Anadama Bread

When exactly does one add in the other 4 tbsp of butter? Butter never appears after Step 1 (2 tbsp) until buttering the bowl and pans at the end of the process. The first Thanksgiving, 10 years ago, when I made this bread I was mystified as to why the batter was so dry. Now I add the rest of the butter during Step 2 and go on faith that is the right point. Wish The Times would fix this...

It looks to me like the remaining butter is brushed on in Step 6. However, if you improved the recipe by adding more butter to the dough, I commend you--in my opinion, more butter is always better! I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea to replace part of the all-purpose flour with King Arthur whole wheat flour. The additional fiber might help compensate for extra butter, LOL.

This turned out great. I was short of white flour so substituted 1 cup of whole wheat. I don't have a mixer with dough hooks, so I used a wooden spoon to mix in the flour, then my hands. The dough was a bit shaggy so I let it rest for 15 minutes then formed it into a ball to rise. I forgot to brush on butter after baking. The loaves have a nice loft, perfect crust. The taste is amazing.

My notes: Heat ½ cup molasses 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup milk 6 T butter Add 1/2 cup cornmeal. Let sit 10 minutes. Cool to 110°. Stir in 1 tsp salt 1 1/4-ounce package active dry yeast 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour Knead. 325° convection, 25-30 minutes

Made this bread today. After reading the comments I decided to add the additional butter (melted) into the dough in the final stages. Also opted to forgo the nutmeg (seemed weird, though some of the other commenters seemed to be enthusiastic about it). The final product was tasty, soft & a bit sweet. Husband is a big fan. Would definitely make it again.

This looks like the old Craig Claibourne recipe. If so, the butter goes in with the molasses in step 2

Flour can contain highly variable amounts of moisture, depending on a bunch of different factors. Most recipes post a range, but for all baked breads you will always need to adjust the amount of flour depending on your circumstances. Start with the lowest amount (the only amount here) then add until the dough behaves the way it should based on the directions. Some doughs are very wet and some are very dry so you have to just wing it. The good news is that even if you screw up it usually good!

Reduced the butter to 4.5 T. I put 3 T in the dough, and used 1.5 T to brush on the loaves. What a great tasting bread. Really rich flavors.

Another Anadama recipe online recommends letting a cornmeal, hot water, flour mixture soak for about 20 minutes to allow the liquid to absorb. I took that concept and let my cornmeal sit with 1 cup of whole wheat flour in 2 cups of liquid ( leftover whey, here)for an hour before warming to melt the butter and molasses. I ended up adding about 5 cups of AP flour. The dough pulled away from the bowl but looked a little wet. Loaves turned out great!

I share my experience with Anne in that significantly more flour was required than the 4.5 cups stated in the recipient. This was more than a simple adjustment to the amount in my experience. Revising the recipe with weights would probably help. I turned the dough out and finished it on lightly floured silicon mat before the first rise.

I doubled the salt and thinking about this recipe maybe it should have been 1 TB.
What I did with the remaining 4 TB of butter was I divided it in half . One at a time I put each pat on top of the very warm loaf and moved the butter around as much of the bread as I could; I wished I had put down a cloth or paper towel under the cooling rack before so I did not have to clean up the greasy counter.
The nutmeg was a nice touch.

I had the same question. After reading the recipe over and over I finally looked up a recipe on a different web site where it clearly states that 2 Tbsp of butter is for the dough and you need some extra for simply greasing the pans brushing on bread. I wish the Times would edit and clarify this recipe too!

add 1/2 cup water in Stir in.

Like others I added the extra butter in step 2. Also substituted one cup of whole wheat flour for one cup of the white flour, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. I was happy to see it rise without effort in our rather cold wintertime kitchen. The resulting loafs have a wonderfully crispy crust and rich, complex dark, sweet flavor.

Note that the two rise times and cooking times bring this recipe closer to 4 hours instead of the 2 noted at the top of the recipe.