Shari: I was given the task of coming up with bread for brunch service that kept well, toasted nicely and could easily be made entirely by hand. Delightfully dense, moist potato bread seemed a natural fit. Of course this being Culina plain old potato bread just wouldn’t do. So I switched out the potato component of the recipe for a samosa filling (sans peas) . Oh yeah, I was on to something. Months have passed and the variations I’ve come up with seem to be endless, with some favorites repeated once in a while. Sweet Potato in place of the Yukon Golds is now standard, hummus for a portion of the potato, with some toasted pine nuts and fresh herbs thrown in as well. Any combo of herbs, cheese, olives, sundried tomatoes, spinach and lemon, sage and browned butter….
….. and then there’s the sweeter variations: chocolate and dried cherries, dates and fennel, chai seasonings, coconut and lime. Whatever’s in the pantry is fair game come bread making day.
Attached is a scaled down version of my basic potato bread, it will give you 2 good sized loaves. They keep well for a few days and make beautiful toast. As far as I’m concerned there are not too many rules about what you add to it. You can easily add 2 cups of your choice of flavourings just try to keep the liquid ingredients to a minimum and proportionality use less potato water.
So go ahead, experiment a bit, and have fun playing with your food.
Basic Potato Bread
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Recipe By: shari
Yield: 2 loaves This is a 2 day process
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cups warm water
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
3 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 cups mashed potatoes
1 cups lukewarm potato water
Directions:
-day before mix first 3 ingredients and let sit room temp overnight
-day of activate yeast in warm potato water in a large bowl combine potato water, 1 cups flour, salt, preferment and cooled potatoes
-slowly add additional flour – up to 2 more cups knead for 8 -10 minutes
-cover and let rise till doubled in bulk – approx 1 hour
-shape loaves and place on parchment lined baking sheets cover and let rise 1 more
-hour bake 375 for 30 -35 minutes
Notes: variations are infinite;
-can add up to 2 cups additional dry ingredients for flavouring
-cheese, fruit, nuts etc
-whey in place of potato water
-substitute potatoes for sweet potatoes, hummus….
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Davidlean
/ June 4, 2010Yeah, it’s good, very useful, thanks