Sunday, June 28, 2009

Rustic Potato Loaves


The Pie Queen used to make potato bread when I was a kid. She was taught by a kind woman in the neighborhood. It's one of THOSE memories for me. Eating potato bread hot out of the oven with real butter (not margarine) melting into all of its crevices. So, it had to be one of the recipes I tried this year. I didn't use her recipe (although I have it and will probably experiment with that one as well), I used one from Baking with Julia. I've been transcribing some of the recipes I've used from this book, but this one is just too long. Apologies. You'll have to either buy your own copy of the book or come on over to my house and copy the recipe.*

I do, however, have a few things to say about this recipe. To start with, in spite of its length and wordiness, this is one of the easiest bread recipes ever. Really. Mash up the potatoes, add some flour and other stuff, put it in the Kitchenaid with the dough hook (yes, I cheated again, Julia told me to),


let it rise, shape it, let it rise again, bake, done. No 15 minutes of kneading. No complicated shaping. Simple. Rustic. The skins are left on the potatoes in this recipe, which I like. It adds color and variation to the dough.


The taste of this is so hard to describe. It's so much more complex than any regular bread, even sourdough. And the texture of it is complex as well. I guess the best way to describe it is--hearty. I finished baking the bread shortly before dinnertime, so we used it for chicken salad sandwiches for dinner. My family isn't really the sandwich-for-dinner type, but with this bread it was a completely satisfying meal.


Of course, my favorite way to eat it is hot with loads of butter. The recipe's guidance to "cool on a rack for at least 20 minutes before slicing" will ALWAYS go unheeded by me.

TGIP Rating--Rustic Potato Loaves--KEEPER (but try Mom's recipe too)

* I decided to go ahead and transcribe it anyway. The printable version is here.

Next up: Let's see--with Independence Day this weekend, I'm inclined to make something All-American--aside from apple pie I don't know what that means. But we also have our housewarming this weekend which may call for cookies. Will have to decide later.

3 comments:

pinky said...

REAL BUTTER - one of the loves of my life. Unfortunately, I am due for my annual cholesterol count any day now so I must cut back in order to duly impress my physician. Curses!

Miriam Latour said...

I made this bread. It was fabulous! Thanks for transcribing the recipe.

Miriam Latour said...

BTW, I cooked it directly on my bread stone, which worked great. The texture was fabulous.