Potato bread - bread machine

Giving old potatoes a new lease of life

How do you give leftover potatoes a new life? Let me count the ways : feed the birds, make shepherd pie, potato wedges or maybe a potato bread ?

One problem with using this amount of potato to bread flour ratio is the difficulty in forming gluten, the building blocks of bread. I circumvent this problem by giving it an extra 5 minutes of kneading than the usual 10 to coax the flour proteins to do their magic with the  moisture. The other factor is to drastically reduce the salt used so that the yeast can have a free reign. Hopefully the air pockets produced will get sufficiently trapped within the gluten strands giving an overall lift. The experiment  was like going to the quantum particle level with the end in mind : a fluffy loaf of potato bread.

What about you? How do you give your leftover potatoes a new life ?

Makes a medium loaf.

Ingredients

2 1/2  cups bread flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4  teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1.5  cups cooked potato, riced 

3/4 cup low fat milk

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Method :

In a big bowl, whisk to combine flour, yeast, salt and sugar.

Add riced potato and stir with a spoon, forming soft crumbs.

Make a well in the mixture. Pour wet ingredients - milk, oil - and stir from the well, combining the dry ingredients gradually. I use my fingers to do this. Do not worry if the dough appears sticky. Further kneading will resolve this. If you must, dust lightly while working on the dough.

Over to the bread machine :

Knead the dough using 'Dough' cycle 10-15 minutes, until the dough is not sticky and shiny.

Ferment  the dough for 1 hour in the bread machine retainer, until bulk doubles.

Transfer dough to lightly floured worktop, knead again and shape loaf to a ball.

Transfer dough back to bread machine. Proof  for about another hour until bulk doubles.

Bake the bread in 'bake' mode.

Cool well before serving.

Verdict :

This bread was very fragrant to start with. Because of the potato, it is dense and moist with a open crumb texture, more of a sourdough than a regular bread. It has a neutral taste and is most suitable with savory foods.