It's been awhile since I've done a What's Cookin' post. Today's recipe is for Rustic Potato Bread. What makes it rustic? The fact that I made it into a ball and slashed an X in the top. Hehe.
And maybe that it uses lard. Just a wee bit. If you're opposed to lard, you can substitute shortening. But I've been keeping lard in the house for a while now because I'm evil and prefer things like lard and real butter and bacon. And I think it makes this bread taste wonderful!
The way I make this bread is with leftover mashed potatoes. No matter how hard I try to not have too many leftovers of mashed potatoes, I always seem to have at least some. We won't really eat them as leftovers, so this recipe is perfect to use them up. I love finding little bits of pepper in the bread from the potatoes. I think it's charming.
If you don't have leftovers you can boil one potato and mash it. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and use it in place of the boiling water.
The recipe I used says it makes one loaf, but it turned out to be a giant monster loaf the first time. So now I split the dough in two and get two generous loaves out of it.
Rustic Potato Bread
1 C mashed potatoes
1/2 C boiling water
1 C milk
1 1/2 Tbs lard (or shortening)
1 1/2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs yeast
1/3 C warm water
5 C flour
Mix potatoes with boiling water to reconstitute. Scald milk and combine with potato mixture in mixing bowl. Add lard, butter, salt and sugar, then allow to cool to room temperature.
Meanwhile, combine yeast and warm water and set aside until foamy. When potato mixture is cooled add yeast mixture. Add in the flour and knead (by hand or mixer) until smooth.
Allow to rise in a large, greased bowl about 30 minutes. Punch down and form into loaf/loaves by forming into balls and slashing tops or placing in 9x5 loaf pans. Allow to rise again until doubled, about 45 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until golden and bread sounds hollow when tapped.
Happy Eating,
Meg
9 comments:
Mmm, that sounds good. I never thought about boiling a potato and using that. I'll have to try that, because I never have mashed potato leftovers (that I can use. Too much pepper.)
I love your round loaves. They look storebought. :-)
The pepper is actually a nice little kick if you use it for a savory sandwich. But if you're using it for morning toast, it's a little surprising.
It looks wonderful and yummy.
This recipe looks good. I've never made a bread with potatoes as one of the ingredients. I'm going to have to try this.
Meg, it looks yummy. I have tried several of your bread recipes but the humidity here makes it difficult to be successful. Any hints?
Tracy: Hmm, I've never heard of humidity making bread making difficult. I would think the yeast should like it more, actually. Humidity is usually a problem for candy making, though. Is warm enough where you are rising it? Maybe let it rise a bit longer to see what happens?
Wonderful recipe! Bread making is on my top 3 favorite things to do...this one looks like I need to try it next. (And I like the X on top;))
Yum! This will smell good baking in the afternoon. ;)
OMG. I need to make this bread. We love our store brand potato bread and I can only imagine what this would taste like.
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