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Potato Bread - Buns and loaves

A well-tested, home-style, wood-fired bread that combines potatoes, oats, and flour and can be baked as buns or loaves!
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 55 minutes
Course Bread

Ingredients
  

  • 1.5 lbs potatoes peeled
  • 5 cups water
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 2.5 tbsp dry yeast
  • 1 cup millk
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 3 tsp sea salt
  • 2.5 cups Whole Wheat Flour - hard
  • 10 cups Unbleached hard flour *Stone-ground organic works well

Instructions
 

Dough

  • Cook potatoes in 5 cups water until soft
  • Drain the potato water into a stock pot and add 1 cup rolled oats. Allow the mixture to cool until lukewarm.
  • Add 2 1/2 tbsp dry yeast ... proof until foamy.
  • Meanwhile, mash the potatoes with the milk, butter, and sea salt.
  • Add the mashed potatoes to the proofed items in the stock pot and stir well.
  • Add flour to the pot 1 cup at a time. Stir until incorporated. (2 1/ 2 cups Whole Wheat hard, and up to 10 cups unbleached hard flour - you may not need to use all of the flour.) The dough should be sticky.
  • Cover and let rise until double, (Apx. 1 1/2 hrs)

Baking

  • While the bread &/or dough is rising, heat your oven to 600°F. Remove the coals and let it cool down to 450°F - 500°F. (Depending on how quickly your wood-fired oven heats up and cools down, you may need to start prepping it a little earlier in the process.)
  • Loosen up the edges of the dough from the pot and pour the dough out onto a board with lots of flour. Cut dough into chunks and roll in flour (so you can pick up the sections.)
  • Put loaves and buns onto greased and floured pans (for loaves) or sheets (for buns) and let rise for 45 mins. (Yeilds apx. 3 loaves + 16 buns)
  • Bake the bread until brown. Remove the loaves from the pans and put them back in the oven to brown the sides and bottoms. Typically, it works out to a 25 mins cooking time for the buns; and 25 + 10 mins browning for the loaves. (Internal temp of the bread should be 205°F when finished.)
  • Cool before cutting. Enjoy.

Notes

Additional Chef's Notes:
Baking Temperature: A 450°F oven works for me, but I have done hotter and cooler successfully.
Uses for Extra Heat: Since my oven is usually 600+°F for about an hour after raking the coals ... I often roast coffee, brown veggies, or some such till the oven gets down below 500°F.
Keyword hearth bread, wood fired baking, Potato bread, buns and loaves