Favorite Potato Bread

It is the star of my everyday bakery - a bread from yeast potato dough that has already crept into our bread consumption in the most different combinations and so slowly displaces the bought spelt bread. Therefore, it is now time to dedicate a separate article to it.

The basic recipe is quite simple:

First make a pre-dough of 50 g flour with a crumbled cube of fresh yeast (42 g, alternatively 2 sachets dried yeast à 7 g) and 100 ml warm water. Let it rise a bit, a pinch of sugar helps the yeast to grow. While the pre-dough is going, boil 100 g potatoes, peel and then mash them.

Now comes the main dough of 500 g flour, 1-2 tbsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, the potatoes, the pre-dough and about 230 ml warm water (keep the last bit until you see you need it, Dough might be still a bit sticky but should not “flow”). Knead everything well and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour, or until the dough has doubled its size.

Then preheat the oven to 230°C (if you like a darker crust, bake the first 10 minutes at 250°C). Using a scraper, push the dough from the bowl onto the baking sheet so that it forms a bread shape. If the dough is firm enough, pull one side still up so that there is an edge at the top (hence the name “crested bread”). If not, it works just as well. The dough will look very flat at first, but the bread will still rise well during the 50-minute baking. Then remove from the oven and let cool on a rack.

The amount given makes about an 800 g loaf. Usually at least half of it disappears the same evening! I’ve tried a few variations in the meantime - especially the flour mixture always gives the bread a new look without losing its crispy, large-pored character. I find the variant from 630 spelt flour the best, but also with self-ground whole spelt the bread is a hit. And as a filling, anything goes from tomatoes to olives, roasted onions to wild herbs like meadow hogweed.

potato bread