Roasted Potato, Onion and Spelt Bread

This Roasted Potato, Onion and Spelt Bread made it’s debut a few nights ago when I was invited to dinner with my BF and his extended family. The menu included grilled shrimp and mango skewers as well as some delicious scallops and breaded asparagus.

My contribution, of course, was bread and with all this delicious food around, I wanted to make sure it was worthy to be at the same table.  I’m happy to say this bread performed with flying colors.  It tasted great too!

 

Potatoes are from the nightshade family which also includes tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.  There are about 1,000 varieties of potatoes grown today. I’m growing a couple of varieties myself.  My Yukon gold potatoes aren’t ready for consumption yet so they couldn’t make their debut in this bread, but they’ll get their chance soon.

Potatoes get a bad rap in my opinion. They’re accused of being too starchy, but that’s what makes them so great in breads. The yeast feeds off of the enzymes and the starch in potatoes. Potatoes lend moisture as well as flavor to breads. This helps the keeping quality of breads. In fact, I baked one of these loaves on Sunday and the other one on Monday and it still has a good texture and tastes great.

 

Roasted Potato and Onion Bread Recipe

Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman

Makes: 3 medium (or one large and one medium) loaves

Ingredients:

Pâte Fermentée

• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Final Dough

• 2 cups white Spelt flour
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup Whole Spelt flour
• 1 5/8 cups water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 1/4 cups onions, roasted
• 1 cup potatoes, roasted (Yukon Gold Potatoes are a good choice for this bread, but I used a white potato because that is what I had on hand)
• Pâte Fermentée (all of above)

 

Directions:

1. Making the Pâte Fermentée:

   Add the flour, yeast and salt to the water and mix until smooth.  Cover the bowl with plastic and let it stand overnight or for 12 to 16 hours.

   

    

2. Mixing the Dough:

   Add all of the ingredients except the Pâte Fermentée and onions to the mixing bowl. 

   

   
   In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients.  As the dough is forming, add the Pâte Fermentée in chunks.  Adjust the hydration of the dough if necessary by adding more flour or water.  I added more flour.  Finish mixing on second speed for 3 to 3 1/2 minutes.  The dough should feel smooth and supple and the gluten moderately developed.  Add the onions and mix on first speed until they are evenly incorporated.

    

    

3. Bulk Fermentation:

   Grease a clean bowl and place the dough in the bowl, turning to coat it with oil.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment for 1 1/2 hours.

   

    

4. Folding the Dough:

   Fold the dough after 45 minutes of bulk fermentation.  Then place the dough back in the bowl to ferment for another 45 minutes.

   

    

5. Dividing and Shaping the Loaves:

   Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces.  I divided mine into a 2-pound piece and a 1.5-pound, approximately.  Preshape lightly into rounds and place on a lightly floured work surface, seams up. Cover the rounds with plastic.

   

   
   When the dough has relaxed sufficiently, (about 10 to 20 minutes), shape the rounds into round or oval loaves and place in floured banneton baskets for proofing.  Or, if you prefer, you can place them between folds of baker’s linen or in loaf pans.  Cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and let them proof for approximately 1 1/4 hours.

   

    

6. Baking the Loaves:

   Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

   I baked the large loaf in my La Cloche and the other loaf freeform on a baking stone using a steam pan underneath. I’ll outline the process I used for the La Cloche below.

   To prepare the La Cloche Stoneware Baker, I sprinkled it with Semolina flour.  You can use cornmeal but the semolina was easier to get to so I used it instead.

   

   
   You can proof the loaves in the La Cloche if you prefer, but I wanted the flour rings on the dough so I proofed them in the bannetons, then placed them in the La Cloche for baking.

   

   
   Slash the desired scoring pattern using a serrated knife or blade. 

   

   
   Once the oven is preheated, place the La Cloche baker in the oven and cover it with the lid.

   

   
   Bake the loaf for approximately 40 minutes.  After about 25 minutes, remove the lid and let the loaf finish baking for the final 15 minutes.

   

   
   To keep the stoneware baker from cracking when you remove it from the oven, you need to place it on something that won’t cause an extreme temperature change.  I placed it on towels on top of a wooden cutting board. 

   

   
   At this point, I put the large loaf in a basket and transported it to the dinner. We tried some of the bread before dinner and with dinner.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.  They liked it with olive oil or butter.  I preferred it with the olive oil.  It didn’t need any herbs.

   

    

   I didn’t have time to bake both loaves before dinner so I put the other banneton basket with the small loaf in it in the refrigerator to retard overnight.  I baked the second loaf the next night on the baking stone and it turned out great.  I’m still enjoying it.

    

 

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Maori Bread: BBB

This month’s BBB (Bread Baking Babes and Friends) is hosted by Lien.  She chose Maori Bread as the bread for March. Maori Bread, also known as Rewena paraoa, is a bread from New Zealand that is made using a potato starter. Lien adapted this bread from Dean Brettschneiders Global Baker.

According to the book,

"Rewena is the Maori term for the fermented potato mixture used as a raising agent to make this effect it's a type of sourdough. It's difficult to find the exact history of this bread, but it has been suggested that a flat unleavened bread was made with ground-up bulrush plant and water, baked over hot rocks. Traditionally, rewena is baked for large gatherings and the loaf is simply torn apart for sharing amongst friends and family. I have added a little fresh rosemary for flavour because this bread has little salt and can be bland. Stenciling the iconic New Zealand silver fern onto the loaf by dusting with flour and baking gives this loaf a truly New Zealand identity. This rewena needs to be made two to three days ahead."

I had a hard time finding a stencil of a silver fern that would be suitable for bread so I used a different fern stencil. This is the first time I’ve used a stencil on bread so it was a new experience for me. This one turned out to be a wee bit too big for the bread. Next time, I think I’ll choose a smaller image.

 

Rewena paraoa (Maori bread)

Adapted from Dean Brettschneiders Global Baker

Makes: one large loaf

Rewena

• 100 g potato, peeled and thinly sliced
• 165 ml water
• extra water
• 165 g strong bread flour
• 1 tsp liquid honey

Dough

• 400 g strong bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 20 g liquid honey
• 1/4 tsp instant active dried yeast
• 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
  150 ml water
• 330 g rewena, from above
• additional flour, for dusting

 

Directions:

I started this process Friday morning before work.

To prepare the rewena, place the potato and water into a saucepan and then boil until the potato is soft, leave the lid off. Mash the cooked potato in the water and add extra water until you have 250 g in total.

Put into a bowl and cool until lukewarm. If the mashed potatoes are too hot, it will cook the starch in the flour. Mix in the flour and honey to make a soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place until the dough ferments.

After one day you'll see a few bubbles on the surface, after two days a lot. You can use it after two days or up to three, if you'll leave it longer it'll be over its strongest point.

This is what my starter looked like Sunday morning.

To make the dough, put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and, using a wooden spoon, combine to form a soft dough mass. (You may need to adjust with a little more flour or water.) Knead the dough in the spiral mixer for 8 -10 minutes (starting on speed 1 or 2, halfway on speed 3) until the dough (almost) clears the sides and the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough into a lightly oiled large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place. Once the dough has almost doubled in size (this will take approximately 1 hour), tip the dough onto the bench dusted with flour and gently knock it back by folding it onto itself three to four times. Return the dough to the lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave for a further 30 minutes in a warm place.

Remove the dough from the bowl and fold it to form a large rectangle. This doesn't need to be exact, just as long as it's tight and compact. 

Place on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper and cover with plastic wrap. I shaped my dough in an oval shape rather than a rectangle. I thought it might fit the fern stencil a little bit better.

Allow to prove for approximately 60-120 minutes, depending on room temperature.

Optional: Cut a silver fern-leaf or Maori moko design stencil out of stiff paper. Remove the plastic wrap from the dough and place the stencil on the dough's surface (I sprayed the stencil with pan coating, otherwise it would have got stuck on the dough).

With a fine sieve filled with a little (white rye) flour, lightly dust flour over the stencil so you are left with a pattern on the loaf.

Carefully remove the stencil.

Using a sharp knife or razor blade, cut around the edge of stenciled pattern. I used a serrated knife.  The dough was really slack and wet so I had a little trouble getting the scoring to cooperate.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF with a baking stone inside (the stone should really be hot!) and a steam pan on the bottom shelf. Place the loaf (and parchment paper) onto the baking stone and pour hot water into the steam pan.  Spray the sides and walls of the oven with water using a spray bottle.  Do this three times during the first minute or so of baking.

Bake for 10 minutes and then turn the tray around, reduce the oven temperature to 400°F and bake for a further 20-25 minutes, or until the crust is a dark golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

As you can see from the photo above, the loaf didn’t rise very much during the final proofing; however, it had good “oven spring” during the baking cycle.

Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.

Here is the finished loaf.  The crust cracked the middle of the fern a little bit, but not too bad.

I like this bread.  It has a unique flavor due to the rosemary and potato.  It’s not quite like other savory potato breads I’ve made. It’s a little bit sweet because of the honey. I was very pleased that the crumb had nice holes and a good texture.

 

Thanks for joining me in the bread baking blog.

Happy Baking!

Cathy

Roasted-Potato Bread with Garlic & Rosemary

I pushed the limits on this Roasted-Potato Bread.  This was one of the breads the Mellow Bakers made for October.  I made it in October, but pretty much at the eleventh hour so I didn’t have time to post about it. So, here it is November 1st and I’m posting about it.

Not only did I push the limits for making this bread in the appropriate month, but I also pushed the limits of the bread itself.  I made the Pâte Fermentée early Friday morning and let it rest on the counter for the recommended amount of time (12 to 16 hours), then I retarded it in the refrigerator for two days.  We used this method of retarding the dough in the BBA Challenge with Peter Reinhart’s Potato Rosemary Bread.  However, the Pâte Fermentée didn’t rest on the counter as long with that bread. 

I hadn’t intended to retard the dough, but Friday night, I was too tired to spend several hours baking bread so I decided at the last minute not to bake it.  So I put the Pâte Fermentée in the refrigerator and there it sat until Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday afternoon, I took the Pâte Fermentée out of the refrigerator, cut it up into chunks using a bench knife, then I covered the pieces and let them warm up on the counter while I mixed the rest of the ingredients.

 

This dough was a bit too heavy to be mixed in my mixer so I ended up mixing and kneading it by hand.

Then I placed the dough in a greased bowl to bulk ferment for 2 1/2 hours.

After the dough had doubled in size, I cut it into two pieces and shaped each one lightly into a round.

When the dough had relaxed sufficiently, I shaped one round into a boule and placed it seam side up in a round floured banneton.  Then I shaped the other round into an oval loaf and placed it seam side up in an oval floured banneton.  I used a combination of all-purpose and rice flour to dust the bannetons.  It seems to keep the flour from sticking to the bannetons.

Then I covered the bannetons with plastic and let the loaves proof for an hour and half.  Now, when I said I was pushing the limit, I wasn’t kidding.  I finished this process at 6:50 pm and right as I was placing the plastic over the loaves, I got my first Trick or Treaters for the evening.

 

The doorbell rang non-stop for about an hour and a half.  About the time the dough had risen sufficiently, the doorbell stopped ringing quite so much.

 

So I was able to take the dough out of the bannetons.  It just plopped out (gently). It didn’t stick at all.

I placed each loaf on parchment paper.

Then scored the oval loaf down the middle. 

Then I scored the round loaf.

I baked each loaf on a baking stone with a steam pan underneath for about 40 minutes.  While the first loaf was baking, one of my neighbors came by with his young son to Trick or Treat and we got busy talking about gardening. I almost left one of the loaves in the oven too long, but never fear, both loaves turned out fine.

This is the oval-shaped loaf.  It’s good!  I tried it but forgot to get a crumb shot.

 

The round loaf is my favorite.  I don’t want to cut it yet. I just want to look at it.

I’m very pleased with the way these loaves turned out.  So I’m sending them to be YeastSpotted. Please visit Wild Yeast to view all of the lovely breads in the roundup.

 

If you’re looking for the formula for this delicious Roasted Potato bread, you can find a version at WildYeast or livinginthekitchenwithpuppies.  My version also includes roasted garlic and chopped fresh Rosemary from my garden.

Be sure to check out what the other bakers have been up to in the Mellow Bakers group.  There are some awesome braided breads out there.

The Mellow Bakers group was started by Paul at Yumarama. We’re baking breads from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

Thanks for joining us in the Bread Experience bread-baking blog. 

Happy Baking!
Cathy