The mash process is traditional in the bread baking of countries where rye is a dominant grain such as, but not limited to, Russia, Finland, and Germany. It transforms the flavors and performance of flours and grains. For example, Russian bakers sometimes use a potato mash to introduce complex, chocolate flavors into rye bread. In my baking explorations, I’ve found that these techniques also work with corn, wheat, and other grains. In this article, I’ll explain the purpose and process of mashing, and give you my recipe for Anadama bread where I apply this transformative process. You can follow the formula as-is with a cornmeal mash, or you can swap out the corn for oats, whole wheat, or any other grain addition. My hope is that other bakers will see that making a mash opens up possibilities for bread without needing the inclusion of a bunch of additions.
Anadama bread with seeds. Photo: Corvus Corax
Anadama bread is a traditional bread from New England. It’s usually yeast-leavened and sometimes has rye flour in it too. Its name is often attributed to a shortening of “Anna, damn her,” a phrase that was supposedly said by a fisherman who complained that his wife, Anna, made corn-and-molasses porridge too often. He added yeast and wheat flour to the porridge one day to make this bread, and eventually their neighbors all over coastal Massachusetts and beyond began making (or buying) this bread too. Anadama bread was recorded by the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office in 1850.
Grain Additions to Bread
In the case of Anadama bread, you have cornmeal you want to incorporate into the dough, but you could make bread with any number of additions: whole, cracked, or rolled oats, buckwheat, rye, amaranth, and more. When planning the dough, some of your options for how to add these additions are as follows:
Add the grains as-is to the dough (works best if they are soft, rolled, or milled into flour)
Pre-cook the grains e.g. in a porridge
Make a “soaker” (soak the grains in water, hot or cold, and sometimes also salt to restrict the enzymatic activity)
Make a “mash” (combine the grains with boiling water, which encourages the activity of enzymes and the conversion of carbohydrates to sugars)
Make a porridge then inoculate it with a small amount of starter and let it ferment for 2-4 days (this is what is done with several recipes in Chad Robertson’s book, Tartine No.3)
As a baker, you can choose. In this recipe, I’ve chosen an extended warm mash and a preferment.
The amount of the grain addition is up to you. You can always add more to your dough, but I think you’ll find the mash gives you more intense and complex flavors than simply adding more grains or porridge would.
What is a Mash?
A mash is when you combine a grain and boiling water to activate enzymes in the grain that convert starches to simpler sugars. The sugars are then consumed by the bacteria and yeasts in the levain. You will find that the mash changes in character over time. When it’s done, it is sweeter tasting and darker in color due to the conversion of sugars. For example, purple corn when made into mash turns really purple.
So, the real question is: why bother to do this? Flavor and a softer and more moist texture that resists staling.
Most flour by itself does not have much flavor because we cannot taste long complex carbohydrates. Enzymes in the flour must first break up the complex carbohydrates into sugars, and then we use a sourdough levain to consume the sugars and produce complex and delicious flavors. Some of the sugars are not consumed and they give the bread a sweetness. With this process, you get creamy flavors in the bread and usually a not very open crumb. This is especially true for whole wheat where the bitterness from red wheats is eliminated. A mash creates flavors by making fuller use of the grains with no need to add spices or other flavor additions like sugar. However, you can also put additions like spices into the mash and they too will be transformed by the process, gaining in intensity. For example, caraway seeds in a mash develop a more citrus flavor, and just a little goes a long way.
What is Saccarification?
Saccarification is when the warm mash is extended to release even more sugars from the grain. The flour or cracked grains are combined with boiling water, which brings the mash up to gelatinization temps (158-194F). Once the mash cools to 145-149F, an enzymatic flour such as whole grain rye flour or diastatic malt flour is added in order to boost the conversion of starches to sugars. The mix is then held at this latter temperature range for at least 1.5 hours, though I prefer more than 3 hours.
Why Preferment the Levain and the Mash?
If there is too much enzymatic activity in a dough, the bread can turn out gummy. So we want to achieve maximum flavor in a bread and just the right enzymatic activity. This is where the acid in the levain comes in. It helps control the enzymes. The full process outlined in the recipe below extracts the most flavor from the cornmeal, leavens the bread, and produces a crumb with no gumminess and more softness.
When you combine the mash with the levain in the preferment step of the process, you’re reducing the possibility of gumminess and increasing the sweet-and-sour flavors. In case of rye, I would always do the preferment step, but with other flours, it is more optional. In Melissa’s test bake of Anadama bread (recipe photo and gallery below), she used turkey red wheat and heirloom purple el hub corn, and she skipped the preferment stage. You can see how her crumb looks a little more fragile-gummy compared with this one below where there was a preferment step.
Crumb of Anadama bread. Photo: Corvus Corax
Pan Size and Recipe Scaling
This recipe is scaled for a 9x4x4 Pullman pan but a medium USA pan will work too. For the dough to fit in a large Pullman pan (13x4x4) multiply the ingredients by 1.44 to have the loaf size Melissa created in the Photo Gallery below. To fill a large Pullman pan more fully, try a multiple of 1.8.
Grain Mash Process and Anadama Sourdough Bread
Apply the mash method outlined in this recipe to traditional New England corn-and-molasses Anadama bread or try other mashed grains, such as rye, oats, buckwheat and more. The mashing process combined with sourdough leavening brings out complex and delicious flavors in whatever grain or spice additions you choose, and the bread texture will be wonderfully soft, moist, and resistant to staling.
Ingredients
Levain Build 1
- 15g sourdough starter (1 Tbsp)
- 40g water (4-5 Tbsp)
- 60g whole grain wheat or spelt flour (1/2 cup)
Levain Build 2
- All of levain build 1
- 73g water (1/3 cup)
- 91g whole grain wheat or spelt flour (2/3 cup)
Mash
- 220g water (scant 1 cup)
- 100g cornmeal or fresh-milled corn flour (1 scant cup)
- 1/4 tsp diastatic barley malt powder (1-2g) or 10g whole grain rye flour (4 tsp)
Preferment
- All of the mash
- All of levain build 2
Final Dough
- 230g whole grain wheat or spelt flour (1 3/4 cups)
- 30g molasses, more if desired, or substitute a different sweetener, such as sorghum (1-2 Tbsp)
- 6g salt (1 tsp)
Crust
- optional 2-3 Tbsp assorted seeds for topping the crust
Instructions
Levain Build 1 (overnight)
- Mix the ingredients for the first levain, cover, and let ferment until it has stopped expanding or has even fallen. This may take 8-12 hours.
Levain Build 2 (in the morning)
- Mix the ingredients for second levain, cover, and let ferment until it has stopped expanding or has even fallen. This may take 2-4 hours.
Mash and Saccarification (in the morning)
- Combine the grain addition e.g. cornmeal with boiling water. Mix thoroughly and aim for a mash temp of 158-194F.
- Let the mash cool to about 150F and then add the diastatic barley malt powder or whole grain rye flour to the mash, mixing thoroughly. The act of mixing will bring the mash to the desired 145-149F temperature.
- Hold the mash at this temperature range for 3-6 hours. You can do this by pre-warming a Thermos with boiling water and putting the mash in the Thermos. You can also use the proofing setting on an oven or a proofing box, or even make a hot water bath for your mash jar.
- At this point the levain and the mash can be refrigerated for up to several days if desired. You can also refrigerate them just until the evening, and then mix them together for the preferment overnight at room temperature.
Preferment (afternoon-to-evening)
- Combine the levain and the mash, and let ferment for 6-8 hours until bubbly and no longer expanding.
Final Dough (evening)
- In a large bowl or straight-walled container, mix together the preferment and the final dough ingredients.
- With mixing as minute 0:00, stretch and fold the dough at minutes :10, :20, :30, :45, and :60. Adjust the hydration at the third stretch and fold if needed.
- Once the stretching and folding is complete, the dough will expand quickly and can be shaped at about 50% expansion, usually 2 hours after mixing.
- Scrape the dough out of your bowl or bucket, press it into a rectangle with a set of sides narrower than the your loaf pan. This recipe is scaled for a 9x4x4 Pullman pan but a medium USA pan will work too.
- Roll up the dough into a tube, coat the top with seeds if you want, and place it in a greased loaf pan.
- Cover and let the dough proof for about an hour or until it has climbed 2-3 cm up the side of the pan.
- Preheat the oven to 450F during this time.
Baking (late evening)
- Preheat the oven to 450F then lower the temperature to 350F and put your covered loaf pan in the oven. (Use the Pullman pan lid, foil, or even a baking sheet.)
- Bake covered for 20 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes.
- The internal temperature should be at least 205F.
- Let the bread cool for a couple of hours before slicing. If your bread has a significant amount of rye flour (more than 50% of the total flour), let it cool for about 24 hours.
Photo Gallery of Melissa’s Test Bake (Three Stage, Preferment Skipped)
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