My bread baking journey

For those who don’t know, I started learning bread baking two years ago. The first bread loaf I ever tried baking from scratch (without the help of a machine) was a potato bread!

After a few courses and lots and lots of practice, I finally developed a good technique that works with many bread recipes. That, of course, allowed me to customise my bread as much as I like by adding different flavours and ingredients. Exciting!

POTATO RYE BREAD WITH SEADS

• 1 potato (about 200g)
• 300g bread flour
• 100g rye flour
• 7g fast action yeast
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 200ml lukewarm water
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
• 1 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1 tsp caraway seeds

1. Mix all the dry ingredients except the seeds in the large bowl and make a well in the middle.
2. Grate pealed potato by using “pucker” stile hole grater that is common in most multi hole side graters. I prefer using plastic one as that prevents grated potato go grey.

3. Pour water and add grated potato into the flour well. Mix everything together into solid mass by folding the flour in from the sides. Mix the seeds into the mixture.

4. Kneed the dough continuously for 10-15 minutes until it becomes less sticky. Do not be tempted to add more flour during this process.

5. Cover the dough in the clean bowl and let it rise for 1hour until it doubles in size.

6. “deflate” the dough and form it into the loaf. I use a proving basket so it makes nicer looking bread loaf. Cover the loaf and let it rise one more time for 30 min.

7. Once the bread dough had its final rise, bake in preheated 200C oven for 30 min.

8. Let the bread cool completely before slicing.

Happy bread baking!

Rasa