After the excesses of the  holidays, something warm and comforting and thrifty like soup and bread sounds like a great dinner. We've had soup probably four times since the New Year already, and have a wonderful lineup for the next couple of weeks, as all of my cooking magazines seem to have taken soup as their mantra for January and February issues.

Ok, back to the bread. This just looked good. And I promise, promise, promise that I am going to improve upon my (as-of-now) deplorable batting average and actually post on this one!

Looking forward (as always) to everyone else's experiences as well!

Kendra

Potato Yeast Water Pullman Loaf

Long before I had every heard the name 'Yeast Water', I actually had made a culture and had maintained it for months. In fact, I used a 1/4 tsp of the Potato Yeast Water (PYW) to jump-start my first Apple Yeast Water (AYW) culture. Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20693/culturing-growing-and-baking-range-wild-yeasts#comment-143857

I had come across a YouTube video called a 'Potato Sourdough Starter' and I was curious. I grew it, but never tried the loaf that was given in the same series of videos, they simply had too much sugar for me to even want to try. Link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tnjeffofalltrades#p/search/5/XkZ-q6P-ioA

Months later, after becoming involved with other Yeast Water (YW) I dumped the PYW for need of space and lack of usefulness. But, a little while back I thought I would close the loop and use AYW to jump-start and small test culture of PYW.

At this same time, I wanted to do a test loaf in my crazy attempt to make a Pullman pan shorter. I decided that I could use the excessive sugar called for in the PYW culture as part of a test sandwich loaf. I did just that, and both the Pullman 'Shorty' idea and the loaf work well. Link:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/23622/one-pound-pullman-shorty

When Build-#1 was combined with the ingredients in Build-#2 all the sugar really set off a rapid rise in the levain. The rise was not above normal in the final dough. That seemed to confirm that it had to be the sugar that made the rapid growth. I further confirmed later,  in a second loaf, that was pure PYW –which also confirmed the AYW from the jump-start was uninvolved, as well.

The Potato Yeast Water 'Shorty' Pullman (5-5/8” x 4” x 4”)/(14.3 cm x 10.2 cm) made a pretty little loaf.

The softness of the bread can clearly be seen in the bending of the 2 slices against the balance of the loaf.

The crumb had a taste that was pleasant, moist, and with no trace of either sour or potato. It had a very good shelf life extending over the limited 'test period' of a bit over 3 days. As a toast, it was above average.

Although, I found PYW worked well, and made a good loaf, I decided that the making of the levain, and creating another YW seems unjustified just to introduce potato flakes and sugar into a loaf. Yesterday I tested an alternative made with Apricot YW that was, at least equal – if not better, in qualities and certainly simpler in the levain builds. But that is for another posting.

Additional information can be found in the form of loaf-log in PDF format on Google Docs. Link:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_MScoZfDZkwYTUwYzBlMTgtM2UwNC00Nzc1LTkyZjctNmZmN2JkODA2ZjU0&hl=en_US

Ron

Does anybody have a good rule of thumb for calculating the hydration of a dough when it includes plain, cooked and mashed potato?

According to the USDA: Potatoes, baked, flesh, without salt (100 grams) contain on average 75.42 grams of water. That sounds right I guess, but how much of that moisture is available to the dough, and how should I adjust hydration in relation to potato content?

Thanks

I'm searching for a recipe for a bread described on the "Ark of Taste" section of the Slow Food web site--an amazing-sounding bread made with chestnut flour, wheat flour, and a little bit of potato, with milk and olive oil. The bread is called Casola Marocca. I've also seen it online as Marocca di Casole.

http://www.slowfoodfoundation.org/eng/arca/dettaglio.lasso?cod=496&prs=PR_037

I can't find a recipe, even in Italian. I'm wondering if anyone has one or has any advice on where to look, and/or, if this general description from the Slow Food site suggests any particular proportions that might work. 

thanks for reading--any help hugely appreciated! 

here's the descrip from the site: 

The bread is made by mixing finely sieved chestnut flour with wheat flour and a couple of boiled mashed potatoes, which give it its spongy texture. Extra virgin olive oil, yeast dissolved in milk, a piece of culture yeast and water are then added. The dough is broken into round, 20 cm loaves which are left to rise for over 1 hour. After baking them for at least 1 hour in the wood oven - at a lower temperature than the one used for common bread - the dark brown bread, with an intense chestnut smell and a pleasant sweet note, is ready for consumption.

The recipe calls for four medium mashed potatoes which I do not have on hand. How many grams of potato flakes would be their equivalent ?

Thanks all,

anna

I have a recipe that requires dry (instant) mashed potatoes.

Can you substitute:

• Potato starch?
• Cooked mashed potatoes?
• Potato water?

If so, any recommendations on how best to work out the substitutions?

Hi all,

I have recently come across a delicious bread called Alex's Wuppertaler bread.

The ingredients listed are

- Sour rye dough balm
- Bread making rye flour
- Salt
- Potato
- Olive oil (cholesterol free)
- Herbs and spices
- Water added

It's a lovely bread but comes all the way from Melbourne and i would love to know if anyone has any recipes with similar ingredients to this one that i could give a try

Cheers

A friend on the other side of the planet said he was making "Salt Risen Bread" and was wondering if I could help figure out why his didn't have enough oven spring. 

Well, first I had to point out I was unfamiliar with "salt risen" (or salt rising, as it seems to be referred to more in Google), the few recipes I checked first all seemed to be ancient : "use sweet milk", "mix in a quart of flour" and "add a lump of lard", the sort of thing you'd find in old farmer's recipes with estimated amounts and vague temp ranges. 

Anyway, I did locate one or two more modernized recipes and it seems to be a "starter" made from ether potato or cornmeal, with some baking soda and salt. Salt, in fact, seems to be rather minor in the whole process so I have no clue why it's called that. Much of the process needs to be done at rather warm temps, like 100º or so, and the mash/starter takes a day or two to get active. 

My friend says it's supposed to be like starter "in that you're 'catching' bacteria to do the rise"...

Anyone here familiar with it and know how it works? Or have a good, detailed recipe?

And his original question was how long to let it rise before putting it in the oven as his rose very unevenly (oven spring) and barely at all after 4 hours in the proofing stage. 

Thanks to anyone who can shed light on this.

I have a problem. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right?

So here I am, 7 weeks after giving birth to a wonderful baby boy...and I have 12 loaves of bread in various stages of becoming tasty, crusty goodness.

I am not a professional. I do not have one of those nice ovens that will fit all this bread. I have no couche for the insanely wet rosemary potato bread other than the piece of thin natural linen that I picked up at the fabric store for half off. I have to bake loaves 3 at a time, part of the time on a half sheet pan, so that they all get done at the right times.

The smell wafting through my house, though...heaven. Really. The smell of bread baking makes up for the hours of hard work I've put in over the last 24 hours.

Really, the hardest part was making the dough last night. My husband works second shift, meaning he's gone from about 2:30 until about midnight, so during the time I was mixing up doughs I had both kids to take care of, some laundry to do, dishes to keep up with, and dinner to make for Rinoa and I. Not only did I get everything done, but I figured I'd have time to do not only the baked potato and rosemary potato breads that I planned to take to Christmas as gifts, but also a loaf or two of real gingerbread to have with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

I think I've renewed my confidence in my ability to successfully multitask. I quit baking while I was pregnant because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to spend enough time with my daughter after having the new baby and that she'd be forever scarred by my inability to play with her constantly. I can't believe I thought that now, but pregnancy does strange things to you. I now know that I can do my baking, which is something I do for myself as much as to provide my family with the best food possible, and still not neglect my family.

I have to admit that this crazy baking spree was most likely not the best way to reacquiant myself with my rational mind.

I'll share pictures when I'm done. Just thought I'd share my brain today. :)

From Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice...

Beautiful, soft crumb with exceptional flavor.