August 10, 2023 - 1:24pm
Potato flakes as Yudane alternative
I stumbled on an article by Andrew Janjigian on using potato flakes as an alternative to Yudane/Tangzhong methods. I thought others might find it interesting.
https://newsletter.wordloaf.org/p/mash-it-up
Gary
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Thanks for the link! I just bought a 1 pound bag of Bob's Red Mill potato flakes. Was wondering how to add them to bread dough.
I was looking for the same thing when I found it. I'll be trying 10% potato flakes at 200% hydration instead of my usual 10% yudane at 200% hydration tomorrow morning. I plan to pass them through my mill along with the whole grains.
There are also rice flakes (also called "beaten rice"). It wouldn't be a surprise if they work well, too.
Mashed potato? Does it have to be flakes?
You can mash it with butter or olive oil for more texture and flavour in your bread.
Mashed potato should be fine if you control for hydration. Convenience is a major plus for the flakes.
I've added mashed potatoes to many recipes over the years. Was just looking, as Gary said, for more convenience. I have leftover potato cooking water in the freezer, which I'll also use.
Waste not, want not.
Good idea! I imagine that starchy water would be good food for the yeast.
I can't wait to hear your results!
I have not tried Yudane/Tangzhong yet but it must be a significant factor to shreddable bread.
Yudane makes a big difference for my sandwich bread. It is softer and keeps longer than without it. It's not hard but I find it a bother to get the temperature just right. Stirring the grain into hot water (or milk) works best for me but working with the sticky hot goo is not fun.
The claim in the post is the potato flakes can provide the same result without being heated.
Very interesting Gary, thanks for sharing the article with us. As you probably have noticed I use a lot of Tangzhongs in my baking. Anytime I want a closed even crumb that is soft, fluffy and shreddable, for example milk bread I use a tangzhong.
You would be the perfect person to compare potato flakes to Tangzhong.
Please do it in the name of science!
I‘ll have a look for potato flakes when I’m out next at the Bulk Barn and pick some up. If they aren’t too artificial looking I’ll pick some up.
Bob's Red Mill potato flakes have 1 ingredient: potatoes.
a hearty yes to request for your testing the flakes for tangzhong!
No pressure, of course. :)
The loaf looks OK. I'll taste it later but I can't make a judgement based on this one because of operator error.
The dough was extra sticky so I checked the total dough weight. I was missing 20 grams (8.3%) somewhere, almost certainly one of the grains. I botched the arithmetic. That error pushed the hydration from 70% to 76% resulting in the extra stickiness.
Getting old is sad. I solved differential equations in my head 40 years ago and now I can't do sums!
I've updated my spreadsheet to track cumulative weight including the pan so I can cross check as I go.
I'll post again when I bake on Sunday or Monday.
The loaf tastes great and is nicely soft. Potato flakes will be replacing Yudane/Tangzhong/scald for me.
Glad the loaf turned out well despite the error. Don’t be so hard on yourself, we all make mistakes young and old. Don’t forget, Mark Twain once said “ Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
Your remark is so funny about de's . I used to memorize all the theorems and proofs for tests.
They still come back better than remembering which ingredient I left.
My wife helped me eat the last loaf so I baked again today!
It looks great though a bit taller than I consider ideal.
I used our bread machine on the 1.5 hour dough cycle for both the preferment and the dough. When the first dough cycle finished I added the remaining dough ingredients and ran it again. The resulting dough was slightly sticky but easy to manage and quite elastic. I started using the bread machine because these small doughs are a pain to knead well in the KA mixer. Also, I don't need my proofing box because the bread machine holds the dough at 91F.
I milled the grains using my Marga Mulino without sifting. I mixed the potato flakes in with the grains so they'd be smaller bits.
"wgbi" is the King Arthur whole grain bread improver.
I always add a little yeast as a separate control for the rise. I think I added a bit too much today; 0.25% would have been better.
The rye starter is the King Arthur starter fed with home milled rye at 100% hydration. I use it direct from the fridge and then feed it enough to restore it to about 70 grams. I leave it out for a while then put it back in the fridge.
This loaf took 4.5 hours from start to finish. Besides the bread machine pan I only needed to wash my spatula, a single spoon, bench scraper and the bread pan.