Country Ham & Hominy Bread X Two

1 1/3 c Warm Water; 110/115F degree
4 tb Honey
4 pk Active Dry Yeast
8 c Bread Flour; or less
1 c Cornmeal; not cornmeal mix
1 1/3 c Whole Wheat Flour

seenote: Dried Chiles, reconstitute 6 to 8 Anaheim or Numex Peppers,
scrape the flesh from the inside of the skin, discard the skin. using
a sturdy fork mash the pulp until smooth. Use any other method for
mashing chiles. NOTE,NOTE, Use only recipe amount of this mixture.
seenote: Hominy, drain 14 oz. can of hominy, rinse slightly and chop
a little. Until the hominy is in 1/3 hominy size…..
Lightly grease a baking sheet. Sprinkle with 1 tb cornmeal. Set
aside.
Chop the Ham and Onion separately, into small dice or large mince,
fry the ham in a dry hot pan to crisp the edges of the ham. Remove
ham from pan.
Add onions to the same pan, stir over medium heat for 8 to 10
minutes. Cook the Onions until golden brown, DO NOT brown until
crisp. Mikenote: Pay attention to stirring at this step. NO crisping.
Combine onions, ham, and hominy and stir to mix well, let this cool.
In a 4 cup measuring cup, stir the honey into the water and sprinkle
the yeast on top, stir until dissolved. Set aside.
Use the dough hook for this project. In the mixing bowl of a heavy
duty stand mixer, combine bread flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, whole wheat
flour, molasses, vegetable oil, salt and egg. mix on low speed for 1
minute. Add the water/honey/yeast mix, Onion, chopped Hominy, Ham,
Chili Pulp, and enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.
Mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Knead on low speed, adding additional
flour as needed, for 8-10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and
elastic and no longer sticky.
Cover the mixing bowl and let rise until doubled, 1 to 2 hours.
I usually freeze half of this dough for a later loaf. Divide dough
into two balls, freeze in a non stick sprayed, gallon plastic bag.
Continue this recipe with remaining dough.
Punch down the dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough
into a 14″ circle, fold it in half, overlapping, slightly off center,
so the top layer is set back about 1″ from the bottom edge. With a
sharp knife,or dough scraper, make 4 or 5 equally spaced cuts from
curved edge to folded edge, about 2/3 the way across the loaf
(cutting through both layers). Separate the cuts slightly so the loaf
opens up and is crescent shaped. Place on the prepared baking sheet
and let rise until doubled in volume, about 45
minutes……………Preheat the oven to 375F degrees.
Let rise in warm room for 45 minutes, place in 375F degree oven for
45 minutes, or until it is nicely brown on top and the interior
temperature is 200+F degrees.
Remember this bread is fairly wet, and it will go against some of the
rules of breadmaking. Use a flour sifter/duster to lightly flour the
dough on the board if it seems too sticky to handle.
Brush the loaf with the melted butter and sprinkle the remaining 1
tb of Oat bran over the loaf. Bake for 40 minutes or until done.
Remove to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Yields
2 Loaf