Food 07 Mar 2007 11:32 am
recipe request?
This is especially for Cissa, who bakes a fair bit of bread if I recall correctly, but maybe some others of you have some ideas as well.
I’ve been going through an awful lot of the hominy bread from Tall Grass Bakery, and I’d like to learn to make something like it at home. It’s basically a not-too-chewy round of white bread with a large admixture of coarsely ground yellow corn. (Which is not quite what I think of as hominy, but there it is.)
Before I just launch ahead and try dumping coarse cornmeal into a standard artisanal white bread recipe, has anyone out there tried something like this? Any tips? I’m particularly wondering if the sharp edges of the cornmeal are going to slice through the gluten strands, and if extra gluten would help.
on 07 Mar 2007 at 3:00 pm 1.Cissa/LJ said …
Hmm. It sounds good!
I’d be somewhat concerned that the coarse cornmeal wouldn’t cook and would stay pretty hard. If it’s crunchy in the bread you like, then I’d guess that’s just what they did. If it’s not, they may have pre-cooked it some, at least- there’s a recipe we like that has a lot of “hot cereal” sorts of grains in it, and one does pre-cook them.
If the meal is cooked, I think the gluten’s safe. If it’s not, though, I would worry about cutting the strands, especially if there’s quite a lot of the meal. Extra gluten would probably help, but also require extra kneading, and generally I’ve seen mechanical kneading preferred for that.
Hope this helps! And do post about how it comes out- it sounds great!
on 17 Mar 2007 at 9:12 pm 2.Barbata said …
I’ve been searching the web tonight trying to come across some clue as to how to approach the Tall Grass Bakeries fabulous hominy bread. I make very good artisan breads but haven’t yet attempted anything like hominy bread. I’m assuming that why use hominy meal but ‘ve looked in a number of specialty food stores without finding it. Any ideas?
I’m also toying with the idea of making a loose polenta and incorporating it into a wet dough. I’ll let you know how it goes.