January 25, 2016 - 9:27am
Incorporating potato
Good afternoon,
I've started varying my bakes a little; more specifically, adding sweet potato. I've been sticking with my regular sourdough formulae (123), and the sweet potato was boiled.
I'd hitherto not boiled sweet potato, so was unprepared for the quantity of water that came through the ricer. I had to add about 200g of flour when adding 250g of sweet potato in order to maintain my usual consistency; I believe 150g may have been sufficient, as it later firmed up.
Do you seasoned bakers normally roast potato, or do you simply factor in the increased water content? I am considering boiling another batch and straining it, to try and get a rough idea of the water/potato ratio.
Russell.
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Many of them are 90-95% water in their raw state. Steaming or boiling them can add even more water. Roasting helps reduce moisture levels somewhat. If you start with a known recipe and add vegetables, you will typically have to add flour, too, as you have experienced. The surest approach is to weigh the vegetables before and after cooking so that you know whether moisture has been gained or lost. Then adjust the flour weight to account for the additional water carried by the vegetables.
One source I found indicates that a sweet potato is approximately 66% water by weight, raw. Steaming/boiling didn't increase that significantly but roasting drove the water content down to 58%. If those are accurate analyses, your 250g of raw or boiled (and drained) sweet potato added about 165g of water to the dough.
Paul
weight is water - way more than one would think. Weigh the potato before you boil and then afterward to see how much water they absorbed but even raw potato has a lot of water in it.
If you want to know how much is in the raw, you have to weigh it, slice it thin and then dry it in the dehydrator. This sounds weird but when dried you can grind the potato and have it ready for using in bread and know exactly how much water to add to the mix. Just count the fried potato as flour and there you go.
Roasted potato has less water in it and adds additional flavor from the roast too and roasted potato can b dried too. You can also dry pan fry dried potato flakes to get that roasted / toasted taste too
Potato in bread is one of the great bread add ins.
Happy baking
Hi there, and thanks a lot for your replies.
66% raw and around 80% boiled sounds about right for what came through the ricer; I'll definitely weigh before and after for this weekend's follow-up. Interesting idea regarding the dehydration and grinding; I don't have a dehydrator, but have considered one in the past.
Also a great way to be sure of water content!
and she goes wild over pumpkin pancakes. I've tried adding canned pumpkin puree to my usual batter recipe but even in the canned product the water is a real challenge to account for.
I've been toying with the idea of roasting the pumpkin, dehydrating it, then pulverizing to a flour consistency in the food processor. I would think that the same could be done with the sweet potato too. Sounds like Dabrownman has had some success with this so I think I'll give it a go.
--Mike