Lockdown Cooking with Laura-Episode 15-Potato Bread

[Music]hi guys welcome to my kitchen I’mactually not in the kitchen as you cansee today because the mess was too muchand I had to get out of there so I’m inmy dining room with some prettyforsythias that I picked this morninghelped brighten things up so where arewe Oh today we are going to make arecipe called a rustic potato loaf thisis a recipe from one of my really oldcookbooks baking with Julia it is agreat book written by Dorie Greenspan ithas a lot of great bakers in there thatall contribute recipes they’re alltested and they all work at least theones that I’ve made so far and today Iwant to tell you how important yeast isnow I know yeast has kind of been athing and people are going crazy withthe stress baking but I’m going to showyou and demonstrate just how importantyeast is and I’m gonna give you somereally good tips that I learned throughthe years so this jar of yeast I’ve hadin the fridge and I don’t know how longI’ve had it in there the date on it saysJuly 2021 right so I’m thinking ofcourse anyone is thinking that that isthe towel all be all of you know theexpiration date what you need toremember and I could tell right awaywhen I put this yeast in the lukewarmwater there was no activity it justkind of sad there now if you didn’t knowbetter you would just go ahead and makethe loaf and I ended up doing thatbecause I wanted to kind of have a anexperiment I wanted to have a littletest and another good rule of thumb herewhen making a recipe is the way I do itif you have a recipe that you’ve nevermade before I always like to make halfof that recipe if you can some recipesyou can’t do that too because they’rejust a small amount anyway to begin withso I do half of the recipe and that wayif you don’t like it or it is a failurebad recipe then even waste as much andyou know as much ingredients and nowwe’re all on a budget so I think it’sgonna be really important to do that sofor this recipe the recipe made twoloaves so I was making one loaf so whenI discovered the yeast was probably notgonna work I decided to continue withthe recipe anyway so I would havesomething to to show you because it’spretty dramatic I could tell when I wasmixing the dough just wasn’t great andif you’ve made a lot of breads andworked with a lot of those you kind ofknow by feel that’s the part whereexperience comes in you’ve you you havea confidence because you’ve done it somuch so you can tell by the feel and thelook so and also when I was forming theloaf when I was rolling it and puttingit together it just didn’t feel rightthen when I went to open the oven at theend and I saw let meyou look at that when I saw that I waslike yepthere was no yeast action at all so thenI I got kind of excited I thought wellI’m gonna do like a real like a testhere so this yeast that has a date of2021 July what is dead so I’m gonnathrow this out I just saved it to showyou what I recommend doing is cuz I knowall of you went out there and probablybought jars of yeast put a date on herewhen you opened it not when you boughtit but when you opened it because whenyou open it that’s when it startsexpiring because the oxygen is gonna getin there so I wish I would have put adate on hereI didn’t now I have no idea how longI’ve had this in the fridge I didn’tthink it was that long but obviouslyit’s gone to trash so anyway luckily Ihad another fresh jar of yeast in mypantry that was unopened so I made therecipe again with that yeast and totallydifferent the minute I put the yeast inthe lukewarm water you could just tellthere was life there was little bubblesand it smelled like yeast it has acertain smell that you’ll get to befamiliar with it’s a little bit sweet soas I was making that loaf of bread itwas just night and day everything aboutit was better the way it mixed the way Icould pick it upI’m the way I could roll it outand look at this pretty see thedifferencethere’s your science experiment for thedayanyway yeast is a really crucialcomponent obviously for bread so anywayenjoy and I can’t wait to share thisrecipe it’s a very pretty little and ittastes great too I’m not gonna say thatit is the best loaf of bread that I’veever made but it was worth making and itwas not hard so happy baking guys heythere’s our cute little potatoes for ourbread we’re going to take 3/4 of a poundof russet potatoes and quarter them andboil them until tender with one teaspoonsalt when you can pierce them with afork or a knife take them out of thewater lay them on a baking sheet to drythis is important you’re also going totake 1/4 of a cup of the potato waterand reserve thatnow this is the yeast that was dead andI’m adding that to the fourth cup potatowater now make sure that water is nomore than 115 degrees okay you can seelook at the yeast nothing happening atall I stirred it together but it justlooks flat you can tell now this onehere is the active yeastyou can just see bubbles and there’slife and action okay when your potatoesare cooled make sure they’re cooledbecause you don’t want to add the yeastto the hot potatoes you’re just gonnamash them up in the mixer low[Music]I made a mistake here and I added thedough hook too early you should reallykeep the paddle in there while you’readding the yeast and the olive oilwhoops okay to this you’re going to addthe yeast mixture and one tablespoon ofextra-virgin olive oil[Music][Music]okay now to this we’re going to add twocups plus six tablespoons all-purposeflour and one teaspoon kosher saltwe’re going to mix this on number twospeed for about two to three minutes thedough is going to start out looking alittle bit like pie dough it’s going tobe dry and crumbly but towards the endit’s going to look like more like abrioche doughokay after the two to three minuteswe’re going to turn it up a few notcheson the speed and we’re going to go for afull 11 minutes now the dough is comingtogether still coming together okaythere’s going to be some pooling in thebottom and that’s totally normal and nowour dough is completely together we’redone with that step next we’re going totake some plastic wrap and cover ourbowl and let it sit as is for about 20minutes at that time we’ll preheat ouroven to 375 degreesso these are tiles that I buy at HomeDepot or any store there unglazeduntreated and I put them on my rack inthe oven they get a lot of use as youcan tell now I have a baking sheet onthe bottom floor of the oven and I fillthat with water and then I’m spritzingthe sides of the oven with water that isjust plain water that’s gonna make thesteam to give our bread a crust now in alightly floured surface I’m patting thedough into a rectangle then I’m going tostart at the part that’s farthest awayfrom me and start rolling that up almostlike a jelly roll see how nice that isit’s so nice to work with we’re justgonna roll it up towards usa little piece of potatoI’m going to tuck those ends under andjust kind of seal it I’m going to makethe torpedo shape you can kind of gentlyroll it back and forth to help with theshape I just love the feel of bread nowwe’re going to take a baking tray with alinen towel or kitchen towel and we’regoing to dust that with flour and thatis where our bread is going to rise forthe second time about 20 minutes justgoing back and forth like that will justhelp give it a nice shapenow we’re going to cover it again withanother towel so it doesn’t dry out andlet it rest in a nice warm place for 20minutes okay now we’re going to takethat loaf and flip it over with the seamside up on a pizza peel dusted withcornmeal and slip it right onto ourstone then spritz it with water shut thedoor really quickly and bake for 45minutesthere’s our good love and our sad loaf