Potato bread

Still have sacks of potatoes in the attic and under the stairs. What to do with them? Too much fried food is bad for the figure. I discover a “rustic potato bread” recipe on a German website. We eat a lot of bread, and I want to save some money avoiding the overpriced work canteen and bring my own lunch.

The bread is essentially made of same amount of boiled potatoes and flour, e.g. 700g of potatoes and 700g bread flour, mixed with 2 tablespoons of oil. Our tatties tend to liquefy on boiling – they do that this year up and down the country, we've found out – so I try microwaving them on the second attempt. The yeast mixture is made out of potato water, 1 teaspoon of yeast with about 120g of water, but in truth, it doesn't matter that much as long as the potato-flour ratio is alright and the dough with the starter yeast mixture doesn't end up too wet and sticky. Salt to taste. You need to let it rise twice. I plain forgot to bake the second bread one night and it therefore rose overnight. Then I stupidly thought OH would bake it but he had other things to do during the day, and I hadn't bothered to actually tell him what I wanted. So the thing had a chance to rise for almost 24 hours before it got knocked back and baked. It resulted in a really nice sweet and sour taste, and the texture was as brilliant as ever, soft but firm and springy, with a good sour crust. The crust is achieved by putting a smaller baking tray full of water underneath the bread as it bakes. The moisture does it.

With the second bread, I also added a tablespoon each of crushed cumin and caraway seed. Makes for better digestibility.

OH loves the bread too so it is now very likely that we'll munch our way through our potatoes after all, before they sprout or go funny.