The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hamelman's Roasted Potato Bread with Onions

Sedlmaierin's picture
Sedlmaierin

Hamelman's Roasted Potato Bread with Onions

This bread seemed really easy to make and it has an excellent flavor! After quizzing my family and friends they all voted for the version with onions, so that's what I made. Not having made or eaten potato bread before,I had no idea what to expect and the only thing that surprised me was how relatively soft the crust turned out to be-it was nice and crunchy when coming out of the oven, but softened upon cooling.I assume that is because it is relatively moist,with the potatoes,onions and oil. I really enjoy the effect that the olive oil has on the flavor-it makes it fruity,rich and creamy!

I left the skin on my one, huge potato and just chopped it fine-that means there are very small pieces of potato still visible in the bread and the skins gives it a nice marbled effect.

The one thing that did not work out that well-or let's say it only worked well on one loaf-was the fendu shaping.And it was entirely my fault-on the succesfully fendu shaped loaf I really used a lot of flour,which I then had to knock off before folding and final proofing.Which made me think,oh I won't use as much flour on the next one, just a little bit..lo and behold, it just didn't turn out that well-it didn't open up as nicely and the rolling pin stuck just a tad when I tried to get it out.Live and learn.

Here are pictures:

So far this challenge has been a lot of fun-I would have never made the potato bread otherwise! It is a lovely bread that I will definitely make again.

Christina

Comments

ananda's picture
ananda

Hi Christina,

I'm so glad you enjoyed making this bread; I hope to post on it very soon, as one of my students made this on Friday in a breadmaking competition hosted by one of the UK bread manufacturers.

His only variations were to use some garlic in the roasted onions, and we used a biga, as a pre-ferment instead of pate fermente.   The biga worked, the garlic was unecessary.

We proved in bannetons, then used some really simple cuts prior to baking, rather than opting for the fendu shape.

Total winner of a formula; It's great that you enjoyed making it and were so happy with the final bread.   So moist and flavoursome; we loved it!

Best wishes

Andy

pdiff's picture
pdiff

One of my favorites.  It has a good earthy flavor.

Dang, you're tearing through this book :-)  Hopefully I'll get to post some of my efforts of this weekend soon.  Watching all yours has made me envious, but work and weather have kept me away from baking.

Sedlmaierin's picture
Sedlmaierin

I have an almost four-year-old in the house. He eats A LOT of bread......I ,of course, don't! Hardly eat bread at all ;p

So, yeah tearing through it since I keep finding myself without bread!

C

pdiff's picture
pdiff

Ha! Ha!  A built in tasting panel.  Nice.  So sorry to hear you don't get to sample your hard work :-)

On the bread, how did you cook the onions?  Brian fried them.  My attempts at roasting them for this bread previously got them a bit .... crispy :-)  I had tried roasting them along with the potatoes.

Sedlmaierin's picture
Sedlmaierin

Oh, yeah, I actually forgot to mention that in the post above: I pan fried them. I used just a tad of olive oil in my cast iron skillet-it took about 30 minutes on medium low heat.

And I do get to eat the bread, but for example, right now we are almost out again.One more loaf left, which surely will be gone by Wednesday.....and therefore I better prep for another bake. Those growing little people!

C