Steamed Brown Bread

 There are three brown bread recipes in this cookbook. This is the first of the three. According to Lois Widmer, who submitted the recipe, her mother served it every Saturday night with baked beans. And it became a favorite at the monthly baked bean suppers at First Parish Church in Brunswick in the 70's and 80's. 

I confess that I was a little puzzled by the first ingredient. I mean, when was the last time I ate All-Bran cereal? (Ah, that's right, um, Never). I wasn't even sure they still made the stuff. I had a great-aunt who ate it religiously, but that was eons ago.

Will miracles never cease! There it was, on the grocery shelf, apparently selling to someone all these eons. Well, I was willing to try anything, once. Here goes!

Turns out, the miracle ingredient is All-Bran. Who knew brown bread could taste so good? I always remembered it from my childhood as a rather sour-tasting thing. And as a child, I was not very adventurous with food, preferring my bread to be square, not round.

I have studied all three recipes in this cookbook. It turns out that there are two ways to traditionally cook brown bread. In a pot of hot water on the stove, or in the oven in a pan of hot water. Oh, and of course, the batter is poured into a greased tin can. So, I was a little obsessed with getting a metal coffee can, because all my research indicated this is how it is done. And we buy coffee in a bag. Did you know that most coffee comes in plastic containers? I finally found coffee sold in a tin and bought it. But then I was drinking coffee like crazy, trying to get to empty can status for my bread-making... when a (highly-caffeinated) lightbulb went off. I mean, on. Lightbulb on. I had a medium-sized can from the peaches I used in the ice cream recipe (see Banana Ice Cream blog). Not as big as a coffee can, but not as small as a soup can. Why not just cut the brown bread recipe in half, and use this medium can? Ta da! No sooner thought than done!

Okay, ready for one more lightbulb moment? I didn't want to heat up the oven for hours and hours. And I didn't want to cook something on the stovetop for hours and hours (I would feel obligated to babysit it). So out comes the little white crockpot. And the medium-sized can fit just right inside it. And all I had to do was pour boiling water around the can, to about halfway up, make sure tinfoil was tightly wrapped around the top of the can, turn the crockpot on high, and the bread mixture could take it's sweet time doing it's steamy thing in the can. I was already using the large crockpot to cook the Macoranadi recipe (see Macoranadi blog), so the little white crockpot sat next to the large crockpot, happily steaming the bread while the beef short ribs were busy becoming fall-off-the-bone delicious.

Now, you'll see a picture of what-was-left. Not much. That will teach me to take a picture of the bread before the Resident Archeologist goes to the kitchen for seconds. Bread that sends you back for seconds is good bread.