Best Potato Bread Recipe
This bread's firm crust is reminiscent of the old-fashioned breads my grandmother used to make. I let my stand mixer (with dough hook) do most of the work for me.
This bread's firm crust is reminiscent of the old-fashioned breads my grandmother used to make. I let my stand mixer (with dough hook) do most of the work for me.
- Carbohydrate 0.00323244791666667 g
- Cholesterol 1.9064453125 mg
- Fat 0.719353411458333 g
- Fiber 0.00110416666666667 g
- Protein 0.007993359375 g
- Saturated Fat 0.455530520833333 g
- Serving Size 1 1 serving (1g)
- Sodium 223.123083775649 mg
- Sugar 0.00212828125 g
- Trans Fat 0.0503537239583334 g
- Calories 6 calories
Step-by-step
- Place potato and 1-1/2 cups water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until very tender. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup liquid. Mash potatoes (without added milk or butter); set aside.
- In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, 4 cups flour, potatoes and reserved cooking liquid; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a stiff dough.
- Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Shape into loaves. Place in two greased 9x5-in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375degrees. Sprinkle lightly with additional flour. Bake 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.
When counter space is limited, managing a double-loaf bread recipe requires deliberate staging. Starch integration changes the fundamental chemistry of sandwich bread. Boiling and mashing a single potato introduces free starches that bind extra water molecules, keeping the crumb soft long after cooling. Retaining half a cup of the starchy cooking water provides additional gelatinized starches to feed the yeast efficiently while adding moisture back into the flour matrix. Water temperature for dissolving the yeast must remain strictly between 110 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Exceeding 120 degrees kills the yeast cells instantly, whereas water below 100 degrees fails to activate fermentation. Mixing requires either a heavy-duty stand mixer equipped with a dough hook or sufficient counter space to manually knead six and a half to seven and a half cups of flour. Kneading must continue for six to eight minutes until the gluten network forms enough elasticity to trap expanding carbon dioxide gases. During the primary bulk fermentation, place the covered bowl in a draft-free environment maintained near 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Letting the dough rise until doubled takes approximately one hour, though ambient room temperature dictates the exact duration. Dividing the mass into two greased nine-by-five-inch loaf pans ensures uniform heat penetration during baking. A secondary proof of thirty minutes allows the shaped loaves to recover before hitting the 375-degree oven. Overproofing causes the internal gas bubbles to overexpand and collapse, resulting in a dense, sunken center and a coarse texture. Correctly baked loaves reach a deep golden brown exterior and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom crust. Transferring the hot bread immediately to wire racks prevents steam condensation from softening the crust during the cooling phase.
