One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Bread!

The other day I was rummaging through all my recipes, felt like doing some old school baking, when I came across a recipe from the 1900's for Potato bread. I love potato bread, yet have never actually made it.

It took two days to make, but turned out wonderfully. The recipe I have make 4 loaves, I made two and took the second loaf over to my good neighbor. The boys in my house have declared that they will no longer have normal sandwich bread, instead POTATO BREAD FOR ALL!

Starting at noon, make your potato ball;
4-5 medium potatoes, peeled
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 packages of dry yeast

Boil the potatoes until tender, then drain very well and mash. Allow them to cool to a luke warm ( I almost messed it up here, I thought it was luke warm until a started to knead it. Felt like it was still a little too warm. Luckily it wasn't) Add the sugar, salt and yeast. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface a knead just enough to form a ball. Place into a medium sized bowl, cover with a clean towel, and let rise in a warm place until after dinner. The ball will be light a spongy feeling.

After dinner, start the sponge;
1 quart milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 rounded tablespoon salt
4 cups all purpose flour

Heat the milk to a scald, add sugar, butter, and the salt. Remove from the heat and allow the butter to melt and allow the entire mixture to cool lukewarm. In a large bowl combine the milk mix with only half the potato ball and the flour. Stir until blended well. Cover with a dry towel and set aside over night.

Make bread before breakfast:
6 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup melted butter to brush tops after baking.

The sponge should be a pancake batter constancy, and bubbly. Preheat your oven to 435F, and stir in enough flour into your sponge to make a soft dough, not sticky and yields easily when kneaded. Turn out onto a floured surface (only enough flour so it doesn't stick) knead until firm and elastic not stiff (the biggest problem that people have when it comes to homemade bread, is that they add too much flour or knead it to long) Divide the dough into two, and place into 2 9x5 bread pans that have been greased. cover with a dry towel and allow to double in bulk, about 2 hours. Bake at the 435F for 15-20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and bake for another 40 minutes at most. The crust should be brown and went you rap on it with your knuckles there should be a hollow sound. Cool twen minutes on the pans side, remove and cool on a rack. While bread is still warm, brush the tops with butter.

The other half of you potato ball should be stored away until a later baking. When ready to use it, allow it to set out to reactivate the yeast. This ball will still be active up to one month. Start the recipe with the sponge instructions.

I also made saucepan fudgies, honey cookies, peanut butter cookies, lemon and walnut bread, and molasses cookies.