Been a very, very long time since I made potato bread, and of all days I chose today make it, there were some leftover mashed potatoes, just about enough sitting in a large bowl in the fridge this morning, and that was all I needed to get me started.
Firstly I am old enough to remember watching my Grandmas and my aunts,my older cousins and even my Mom make bread, I even taught my, at the time, preschooler son the basics of bread making.
So, I do read the recipes, but mostly , it's "by guess and by josh", bread is really not that demanding, good yeast, good flour, clean water, and a warm place to grow and it is happy. What else can I say?
I dragged out a number of cookbooks, looked over the recopies, and sure enough, not one of them was a match for the amounts of ingredients I had on hand. And I wasn't about to drive into town to buy them, that would have meant, well meant more time and effort than I wanted to exspend.
I made up my own recipe, and I am not recommending you do the same, seriously I'm not!
But just for my own use I did write down what I did, and will share it because it turned out really good.
-place the almost 2/3 cup of mashed potatoes into a large bowl,
-add aprox 2 cups of hot water, slowly and whisk until smooth
-add 1 1/2 TBsp Butter or what ever you have
-the appropriate amount of rapid rise yeast, this can vary buy product
-1/2 tsp salt or sea salt
-1/3 c powdered milk
added some well muddled granulated onion, dill weed, and parsley... that is because we like ours that way, you may not
-allow the yeast to bloom for several minutes then, blend in 4c of plain flour., it should be really sticky, put 1 cup or 11/2 cup of flour on top and let it rise until it is about doubled
-when it is doubled, dump it out on an immaculately clean tabletop or counter and knead in the flour that was covering the sticky dough, knead it until it smooth, elastic, and not sticky, you will probably need more flour, add it slowly so you don't add too much. To much flour the bread will not turn out tender, then allow it to rest while you clean you hands and prepare 2 loaf pans by spraying them nonstick spray, also spray a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover both pans
-have ready, some softened butter, or oil, or country crock because after you divide the dough in to 2 cute little loaves. You should be able to rub a generous teaspoon of whatever you choose onto the loaves and plop them into the prepared bread pans, cover them, sprayed side down with the plastic wrap, and be patient until they rise.
-put them into a 285degree oven until they are a golden brown!!! when they are turned out of the pan they should sound hollow when tapped, gently please. Allow then to cool to room temperature before cutting. Seriously does anyone do that?
NOW this is what you shouldn't do, you should not go for a walk, go out for some fresh air, read , or any activity that causes you to loose sight of your hard work. WHY you asked, because then you will come back to enjoy what you made, and all that will be left will be 2 slices.
Considered taking a picture of those 2 slices, but thought better of it because 2 slices are better than NO slices.
