|
|
|
|
|
SearchUser loginFood Buzz
NavigationPSA Favorite Recipes
Active forum topicsRecommended BooksWho's onlineThere are currently 4 users and 33 guests online.
Online users
RSS Feed
|
Baked Potato Bread
Then it occurred to me that I've made potato bread before, so why not add chives to potato bread? And, heck, while I'm at it, why not throw in some other tater toppings like sour cream and bacon and have a full-on Baked Potato Bread? By the time I had second thoughts about it, all of the ingredients were mixed together. But, you know what? It turned out excellent, the perfect accompaniment to a pot of corn chowder on a rainy day. The full recipe is below. As I have written about time and time again, I think the real fun in baking comes once you have mastered the basics and understand how adding different ingredients in different proportions will change the character of your loaf. Whether I am making up a recipe or checking out a new recipe in a cookbook, my point of reference is always the loaf I introduced in lesson 1, which is 3 cups flour, 1 + a little cups of water, 2 teaspoons yeast, 2 teaspoons salt. If I read a recipe and it has more water than, say, a cup and a quarter of water per three cups of flour I know it is going to a slack dough; more fats (butter, milk): a softer loaf; contains sugars: a sweet loaf; and so on. When thinking up this recipe, I took the lesson one recipe, substituted potatoes for about 20 percent of the flour, substituted sour cream for about 50% of the water, and added the chives and bacon and bacon fat. It sounded easy enough, though I made some adjustments as I started baking, as you'll see below. Potato Bread I don't believe that I've every posted about a potato bread on this site, so a little introduction is in order. Replacing between 10 and 30 percent of your flour with mashed potatoes results in a wonderful soft, moist loaf of bread. Potato flakes or potato starch can be used, as well, but leftover mashed potatoes work great even if they have some butter or milk or salt in them. Do be careful, though: potatoes are considerably lower in gluten than wheat, so add too much potato and you will end with a dense, moist loaf, probably too much like a baked potato for anyone's liking. I find 1/2 cup potatoes to around 3 cups flour to be plenty. In this recipe I used a couple of small red potatoes that we had steamed up as a side dish for dinner the night before. All I did was mash them up with a fork and mix them into the flour. I left the skins on before mashing them because I find the little red flakes speckling the loaf to be quite attractive. Bacon isn't to everyone's liking, either for dietary or religious reasons. I see no reason why this recipe wouldn't be good even if you excluded it, but if it something you are able to indulge in I suggest you do. I definitely think it improved the flavor and consistency (and appearance, for that matter) of the loaf. Enough blabbing. On to the recipe! Baked Potato Bread Makes 2 small (one pound) loaves or one large loaf
To begin, chop up two or three slices of bacon and fry them up. Remove them from the heat. Mix the mashed potatoes, yeast, salt, and 2 cups of the flour together in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer. If you have active dry yeast and want to substitute, read this. Add the sour cream, water, chives, and bacon and mix together until all ingredients are combined. I also mixed in the bacon fat, which there was about a tablespoon of in the pan, because it improves the flavor of the loaf. At this point you'll have a very wet, sticky mess, probably more of a batter than a dough. Add additional flour a handful (1/8 cup) at a time and mix or knead it in. (I lost track of exactly how much extra flour I added, but it seems like it was around 9 or 10 hands full. I added 4 or 5 hands full and mixed them in while the dough was still in the bowl, then I poured the dough out onto a well-floured cutting board and added more, kneading it with my hands which I repeatedly dipped in flour to keep the dough from sticking to them. After 5 or 10 minutes of this I ended up with something that was still quite sticky, but was definitely in the realm of a dough and not a batter: it could be formed into a ball and generally held its shape.) Once you have combined the ingredients well and gotten the balance of flour and water to a level that seems acceptable, return the dough to a well-oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for 90 minutes at room temperature or until it has doubled in size. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape the loaf or loaves. Notice how moist and gummy my dough was when I cut it to shape it into two loaves:
One probably could add more flour and make an acceptable loaf of bread with a drier dough, but I've been finding that I get better results the wetter I am able to leave it. But this really is an art, not a science, so use your own best judgement. At this point you need to shape the loaves, cover them loosely and let them rise until they double in size again, about 45 minutes. You could put them in greased baking pans and let them rise and bake them in those. I wanted round loaves, so I put them in a couple of couche lined baskets:
Professional bakers use these kinds of baskets The baking couche As you can see in the picture above, I placed the baskets on a table, the couche over the baskets, and the dough in the floured couche in the baskets. I wrapped the edges of the couche around the balls of dough and let them rise. When they had risen I simply unwrapped the loaves and shook them out of the couche onto my peel (which I dust with semolina flour) and threw them into the oven. While the loaves are rising again, preheat the oven to 425. If you have a baking stone, be sure to put it in early to heat. When they have doubled in size (as I said before, about 45 minutes after shaping), put the loaves in the oven to bake. I baked them at 425 for 5 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 and baked them another half an hour. The loaves are done when the internal temperature reaches the 185 to 195 degree range (as read with an instant-read thermometer) or when they are nice and brown on the outside and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. For me this took about 35 minutes.
And there we have it. The bread was wonderful while still warm with a pot of soup, but I actually think I preferred it the next day cold. With the bacon fat and sour cream, there was plenty of fat in the bread so it didn't need to be buttered; just plain it was rich and moist enough.
|
This weekend I found myself staring out the window at the abundant chives growing in my garden. What could I possibly do with them, I wondered, except eat them on baked potatoes? And how many baked potatoes can I eat before I never want to see another spud again? 
, which are very nice but completely out of my price range. I found two small baskets at Goodwill for 49 cents each and have found that they help keep the shape of my rounds very well.
mixing method
Floyd, because I don't have an electric mixer, I was wondering what you think of using a food processor with the plastic dough blade for the initial mixture instead? I've only ever kneaded by hand, but the stickiness of the dough would seem to preclude this.
Thanks for your insight.
TF
score: 0
I mixed it by hand, just in
I mixed it by hand, just in a bowl with a wooden spoon.
I'm sure you could use a food processor. I do not have one though, so I really couldn't give you any pointers on what speed to do it at or anything like that.
Good luck.
score: 0
Floyd:
Floyd:
Does the wetter dough stick to the linen?
score: 0
Wet dough
If you don't use enough flour, absolutely. Use enough flour and it is fine.
score: 0
Raw Potato Bread
One time, many years ago, someone had asked if I had put a potato into my bread. Potato water, yes, (ie, water left over from boiling peeled potatoes) but an idea was born and I set out to try it. I took a medium size potato, peeled and grated it, rather coarsely and threw it into my sloppy dough when I first mix main ingredients. As potato is always good with caraway, a little of that too. I would say the proportions are like that of your test loaf. Potato demands more salt so two teaspoons is more than enough for me. You might prefer 2 1/4 tsp. I noticed the potato made nice dark flecks on the baked surface and I liked the results. The next time I shredded more than grated. Also nice. (Gosh I can just taste it.) Like you say peel looks good too. I had baked like this often and one day I was eventually asked if I found potato dough too sticky. "No, why?" Apparently they boiled their potato first and used the mashed potato in its water for their bread recipe. I tried that too but found I only do it in winter and it takes too much time out of my creative moment.
One thing I like to do with Chives especially with the first fat juicy greens in spring, is to cut up a lot of them, butter my potato bread and lay it face down pressing firmly into the fresh chives. The delight comes on picking up to find them completely covering the butter and biting into them. Dark breads also good. Yum Mini Oven
score: 0
Watch out for rope
The problem with raw potatos is that they can contain rope, a fungus which destroys gluten and which spores at bread-baking temperatures. If your kitchen gets contaminated with rope fungus, your choices are to (1) wash every surface, every utensil, everything with fairly strong acetic acid (2) move, and hope the person who buys your house isn't a bread baker.
Boiling kills the rope fungus, which is why recipes call for boiled potatos and potato water.
sPh
score: 0
Rope Bacteria
Dear Sphealey, Please tell me more, I looked up rope fungus, nothing. Finally found something under Bread Rope Bacteria, but it can also be found in flour and yeast as well. They reccomend steam to kill it in a contaminated kitchen. I do wash my potatoes. Can it be inside the potato as well? I have never heard of this before because, well, I've never run into it. I supose if I was a profi baker, it's covered in "Baking 101." Can I steam the outside of my potatoes? What about carrots? Mini Oven
June 19 continued: Have read many articles. Some call normal mold on old bread "rope," other articles refer to many kinds of bacterial breakdown of bread as "rope." I think I've seen and smelled it, years ago. I remember cutting an old loaf once, and it seemed still moist, but as I pulled the slice away from the loaf, fine stings appeared. I promply put everything back into the bag and ditched it. Washed board and knife, knowing me, with chlor ajax and that was that. I keep a relatively clean kitchen, meaning I wash my dishes and work surfaces in hot soapy water soon after I kneed my loaves. I wash my dish clothes and sponges daily, boiling them. Throw away old bread bags and wash my breadboards with vinegar/ soap and water often. Tropics (and the ants) have taught me to keep things cool and clean. In Austria, I wipe out my bread box with 5% vinegar and cloth bags for bread, get boiled between use. One interesting thing has popped up, that is that sourdough with it's high content of lactic acid and the poolish process (if not too warm) of mixing (waiting 6-14 hours) decrease occurance of Rope and molds and increases the life of the loaf. I have noticed this on my own. Sourdough has always kept longer than the loaves made with only baker's yeast. I love the effect of shredded potatoes in my bread, so I guess if I don't want to gamble with the life expectancy of my loaf, I will drop my shreds into boiling water or micro wave them in boiling water first, blanching carrots and other vegetable too. :) Mini Oven
score: 0
Thanks so much for this
Thanks so much for this post; the Baked Potato Bread looks soooo delicious....I'll try it asap!
Juliebean
http://suburbanaproncompany.blogspot.com
score: 0
Info on rope
You are correct: rope is a bacteria, albeit one which spores.
_Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ also has a discussion in their chapter on Other Ingrediants.
sPh
PS If anyone could explain paragraph spacing on this site to me, and particularly why it behaves totally differently in forum comments and blog comments, I would be most grateful.
score: 0
just started this bread
since i am neurotic, i am using weights instead of volume. i started this recipe as a 62-2-2 bread, while retarding the fermentation over night. i used 1.5 kg of flour, 830 grams of potato water, 100 grams of sour cream, six diced pieces of bacon, 30 grams of kosher salt, and 30 grams of yeast. the dough was wet, though not as wet as the pics above. the taste of the dough was so good i wanted to eat it raw ;)
i'll let you know how it all goes!
http://www.bmuze.com
upload your music, online
score: 0
New Measurements
I don't know how this bread isn't served at every steak house in america. It is AWESOME! But I just made it last night and I wanted to get a recipe down that was a little more exact than the first version given above. Before I do that, I want to take a second to thank Floydm for giving this a try and coming up with it. I just needed a metric recipe and now I feel I have it. So I converted the best I could the volumetric recipe to weights than I scaled it up a little bit but since I knew I was going to have to play with the flour amount I didn't know how much dough it would weigh. When I make this again I will probably scale it up a little more to make two slightly larger loaves. But I kept track of how much flour I added so I feel very confident that this formula is pretty good.
This gave me a very wet dough just as pictured in Floydm's description and here's how it turned out. The water content seems very low but I guess a lot of water comes from the mashed potatoes and sour cream because I did get a very wet dough. Some important notes: I measured the bacon first then fried and chopped it, I put the bacon grease into the dough as well. The grocery store was strangely out of chives so I felt green onions would work as they are also commonly found on baked potatoes. The potatoes were boiled until soft, the potatoes were then drained, some of the water for boiling the potatoes was reserved to be used as the water in the dough, the remainder of the water was discarded. Then the drained potatoes were mashed. I think thats all the important stuff.
demegrad
http://www.demegrad.blogspot.com
score: 1
Just not for me...
I tried making this bread a couple of weeks ago. While it had a good crumb and texture, and I'm sure that the flavor was right, it just didn't click with my me and the wife. Probably too many loaves of Wonder Bread in our past, I guess.
However, with a few extra seasonings and a bit more salt, this bread made *excellent* croutons for us. I think I'll probably try that recipe again just for the croutons, if nothing else.
score: 0
The potato bread!
Yeah, i loved the bread personally, but i bet it makes delicious croutons also :) The best trick to find a recipes that we'll like is to try many of them, you are one step closer to the next one you'll love :P
Karen Potato recipes
score: 0
YUM!!!!
Holy Cow! I made this last night. The Kitchen smelled like a loaded baked potato while it rose and cooked. I was drooling! Incredible texture and taste. This will become a regular item in my bread rotation. When the loaves came out of the oven I covered them very loosely with foil which seemed to soften up the crust. I think I like it that way though. The softer crust goes nice with the smooth bread texture.
score: 0
Works for us
tried this today, with some variations, since we're in Japan visiting, and don't have access to regular materials. No bacon, since we're vegan. No chives; not available, so used chopped green onions instead. Added a cup of whole wheat flour, and a cup of cornmeal. Delicious, even with the variations, although the dough was less slack than the original. Still baked up well, good spring in the oven. Thanks! And since we're here, this was the first bread I've baked with commercial yeast rather than the KA "New England" sourdough starter in a decade (although after a decade, I think the starter is more a central Ohio one than a New England one)
Alan in Columbus, Ohio, posting for the first time, having just discovered the site a couple of days ago. Look forward to much more inspiration.
score: 0
such good smelling bread...
Hi Floyd
I made this bread today, well tonight i guess it's cooking in the oven! I had a few problems maybe you can help me. I got really great rises out of my dough but for my second rise I had to use a vintage pie dish cause i couldn't find a basket. I used a heavily floured towel to rap it in but when i went to take the dough out it stuck in on small spot and i lost half my rise. Since I've never baked a bread like this I have no idea , but will that dramatically change the taste and crumb?
Also, I've never baked with my pizza stone so this is new ground for me but when i put the dough on the parchment paper things really started to go south and I lost my good shape. How could I have done that differently? Can it do the last rise sitting on parchment paper in a bowl?
Sorry for the silly questions!
How did that cake yeast work out for you?
-Linda
score: 0
Hi Linda, It'll probably
Hi Linda,
It'll probably reduce the crumb some.
I've never tried it one parchment in a bowl, I just flour the heck out of the towel or bowl. Rice flour seems to work even better than regular flour.
I haven't tried the cake yeast yet, but thank you for it. I hope to get a chance this weekend.
score: 0
Linda, parchment proof
Sounds like you were too close to overproofing. Try transferring it to parchment (to bake)before it rises too much. Use the finger poke test. If you don't have a basket, try making a sling with the floured cloth by tying the corners together and let it hang from a cupboard handle. This also lets the air get to the surface of the dough to dry it just enough to help it hold it's shape.
I've also proofed on parchment but then I've also let the bread bake in the bowl shape, a casserole, or small fry pan. I do final proof pizzas on parchment and baguettes. To keep the dough from flattening out and "going south" turn it onto the parchment just before putting it into the oven, if it is very soft, don't score it. If you are using a stone, pre-heat for 50min to an hour to make sure the stone is hot through and through. If it colapses, even a little, reshape it and let it rise again but not so long. Good luck!
Mini O
score: 0
Mini O
Danke.
I would never have thought of using a sling to shape the bread. I do it all the time when I am draining my Kefir and yoghurt. And I also do it from a cupboard handle. Sounds like an excellent idea.
score: 0
Sourdough variation
Hi, I'm fairly new here, this is my first post, I have been lurking on & off for awhile as I've been learning little by little about baking. This site has been a great resource for me - thanks everyone for all for the great information!
I baked a loaf inspired by this post this morning. I left out the bacon as I have a vegetarian in my household (also because I knew I was planning to leave it out at fairly pork-unsafe temps for quite awhile). I also used about a cup of sourdough in place of the yeast suggested. I actually didn't really measure anything much, but mostly went by feel (I didn't really know how much water/flour the starter should be counted as, and winging it is a way of learning for me).
Anyways, it came out very tasty, the whole household raved about it. I took some pictures, but haven't yet messed with them to get them to web size (I'm not very good at that, so I'm not going to guarantee I'll actually get them posted).
Thanks for the recipe, this bread is a great idea - I have a feeling my gf is going to insist I try it again sometime soon!
Russ
score: 0
Delicious Baked Potato Bread
Such amazingly aromatic bread!!! Having a rather small family of 2, I scaled down the recipe by half (and froze half of the mixed dough after the first rise for the second day). The bread turned out soft and wonderful (the frozon one turned out equally nice too!!!)
Here is the photo
However, I have been experiencing blow outs on all my potato breads (3 batches already). I did slash the top with a "x" hoping to help release surface tension, nevertheless, the dough simply took on a life of itself every single time and tore the surface apart. Although I have to say they do look quite attractive in their very "individual" way, but as a new baker, I would really like to know whether this is normal and how I can try control the shape of the bread. Help Please!
Alicia
score: 0