Potato Bread
Came up with this potato bread recipe after having a read of a few different ways of making potato bread and was really happy with the results.
Comes out absolutely fantastic when toasted and spread with butter! so delicious. Very moist.
It's quite a heavy bread, I wouldn't say its dense at all, its still quite soft, but its just heavy and filling. Perhaps thats what potato breads are like?
Anybody got any tips to making a lighter potato bread that has more rise or does that just not happen?
Don't get me wrong, i'd still make this exact recipe again as its absolutely delicious, just want to get a little more rise out of it if i can because i think it'd be even better that way!
Potato Bread
1 Large Loaf
Ingredients
400g Sebago (brushed) Potato
680g Bread Flour
7g Dry Yeast
2 Tblspn Olive Oil
12g Salt
8g Sugar
2 Cups Milk
Method
Cook, Peel and Mash the potato
Chop the potato into chunks and boil in a saucepan until a knife pokes easily through. Drain and mash thoroughly with a potato masher.Put the milk in a Medium saucepan with the Sugar and Salt.
Heat until it just starts to boil then take off the heat.
Mix to dissolve the sugar and salt
Whisk in the olive oil and mashed potato
Pour into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer and let it cool for about 30 minutes (until it is lukewarm or else it’ll kill the yeast)
Add the yeast and 264g (2 cups) of the flour. Put the stand mixer on medium high speed for 4 minutes with the mixing paddle.
Add the remaining flour and change to the dough hook.
Place on low speed and mix for 8-10 minutes. The dough should be rather loose and a little tacky.
Move the dough to a large bowl (which has been coated inside with oil). Lightly coat the top of the dough with oil.
Cover with cling film or a wet kitchen towel and let it rest for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Once it's doubled, punch it down smacking out the air and give it a quick short knead again and form into a log that's the length of your bread tin
Grease a large bread tin with olive oil and place the dough mixture in there pushing down into the corners.
Preheat the oven to 175c fan forced.
Cover with cling film and let it rest for 20 minutes
Pour a small amount of water into the bottom of the oven to create steam.
Place the bread on the middle tray (take the top tray out of the oven as the bread may rise higher than the top tray).
Cook for around 40-50 minutes, check internal temperature has reached 85c or do a “hollow test” (wrap your knuckles on the bottom of the bread and see if it sounds hollow)
Remove from the bread pan immediately onto a wire cooling rack. Leaving in the bread pan will cause condensation to form in the pan and make your crust soggier.
Allow to cool completely to room temperature.
Do not cut into the bread until fully cooled, it will allow moisture to escape and the bread will go stale quicker.
I love potato bread Try it toasted with butter and honey. Delish
for more fluff. Try 230g potato and save the cooking water to use as liquids for the dough. You will end up using less milk but hardly notice the difference. Add oil after hydrating flour with liquids, toward end of step 9.
Let the shaped dough rise longer than 20 minutes for the final proof may also help get more loft in the loaf.
Some tips for lighter potato bread base on visual cues from yours:
-Longer bulk ferment
-Higher bake temp, no fan during bake (until very end)
-More steam during inital phase of bake
-Slightly higher hydration (try adding some of the potato water per Mini's excellent advice)
looks great. I've used potato flour rather than mashed potato. Bob's red mill sells that and I've done it by volume--usually about 2 3/4 APF or Bread Flour, 1/2 c or so potato flour, 1 1/2 c liquid (milk, almond milk, water), 1.5 tsp yeast, 2-4 tbsp butter or oil, 1 tsp salt, and it comes out pretty good generally.
plus/minus an egg and sugar. Depends on my mood. After making bread for a while, I just sort of eyeball it rather than getting exact measurements for a bread sandwich loaf. Sourdough is a much different beast for me.
Instead of mashing the potatoes, try ricing them or passing them through a sieve. Then combine with your other flours to avoid them getting gummy.
Your bread looks underproofed....it's bursting out everywhere. (Your list of directions seems to indicate only a 20 minute proof, which is inadequate.)
I use potato flakes in my dinner rolls....I'm not convinced that peeling, boiling, and mashing would improve the product, since the potato is essentially tasteless in bread.
However, I see that you boil before peeling....that may introduce a bit more potato flavor into the bread. In that case, potato flour might be the better substitute. It hydrates about as well as potato flakes.
Regardless, your lack of fluffiness might be more due to fundamental dough handling technique, rather than anything specific to potato inclusions.
You could be onto something with the underproofing to be honest.
I'm used to working with spelt flour which rises much quicker.
A few original recipes I started off with and converted stated much longer proofing times and i'm not really sure of the impact the potato has on the poke test etc so was a little unsure on the final proof.
I believe the bulk proof was sufficient due to getting a 2-2.5x rise.
I'll try a bit of a longer final proof in the bread tin next time. I was being precarious as under proofing is always better than over.
I don't think it is under proofed at all. If it doesn't crack on top means that is 100% proofed but not too over proofed to cause a collapse. This looks to be 95% proofed - perfect for a loaf bread like this one. Some white breads are supposed to be 100% proofed like a bloomer and have no cracks though like lgrayson says
I love to put instant potato flakes and fresh milled oats into white bread about 10% each to get a high rising one. If you roast the potato and toast the oats first them all,the better
Happy baking
Ok, second attempt at making this with a few minor changes.
420g potato (just a slightly larger potato)
Scoring the dough
30 minute final proof
Folded twice during the bulk proof for structure.
I also used an organic 13% protein white bakers flour
It came out absolutely fantastic! larger rise, nicer crumb, better flavour.
sorry it was actually a 25 min final proof, not 30 min.
racing! Wow!
Even browning all around and more colour! Yum!
Did the bulk rise get longer with the folding and/or were the temps higher? Just curious.