adding potato to bread dough
Hi!
I'm not interested in quantities, but rather form of potato added to bread dough:
Let's consider three possibilities: a) cooked+mashed, b) cooked+blended, c) raw.
All "the BEST" bougie 50+ photographs of scooping a cup of flour life story internet recipes suggest using cooked potato (boiled or steamed) that is then fork mashed or pressed through an affiliated amazon link ricer. Which got me wondering, what about running it through a food processor or blender, until it turns into that sticky-starchy mess? And that led to how we make halusky (variation of gnocchi) at home with shredded raw potato.
Has anyone experience with either b) or c) above in bread dough, and could offer some comments on how the final baked bread would differ from the typical a) ?
Much thanks for your input. I'd love to run an experiment, hopefully later this year, but am pressed for time at the moment so checking to see if I can learn anything from someone who may've already attempted it, before I try something myself.
Thanks for reading :)
I would expect the dough from b) to be very sticky, slack, and hard to manage. I find that even mixing precooked starch (cooked potatoes, grain porridge, etc.) into the dough with an electric mixer is too vigorous, and the dough is much stickier than if I mix the uncooked ingredients in the mixer and then add the cooked portion by hand.
My main concern with c) is that a major reason for adding cooked starch in the form of potatoes is to improve the moisture retention of the finished product, thereby delaying starch retrogradation (staling). If the potato isn't cooked before adding it to the dough, it wouldn't have increased water holding capacity. So, I would expect it to contribute potato flavor and weaken the gluten matrix, but not prevent staling.
Thanks! This is a good start and helpful, I appreciate both your answer and your reading comprehension ability :)
not potato but sweet potato ...
in an unauthorized adaptation of isand66's phenomenal sweet potato cider rye recipe, I've started grating the sweet potato and adding it raw -- mostly because I found pre-cooking the tuber upped the sweetness too much.
It's worked great & the bread remains super-moist & gets excellent oven spring.
Rob
I have used both cooked potato and cooked sweet potato in SD loaves, with excellent results from both. Sweet potato has a lovely color crumb and crust as well as a great flavor.
I use an 80% water content assumption for potato in terms of calculating loaf hydration and adapting recipe weights for the loaves and 85% for sweet potatoes.
I tend to limit the % of potato or sweet potato solids (non water) to 5% of the total flour in the recipe. So for a loaf with 400g of flour I would use 1 cooked potato of 100g cooked weight and reduce my flour from 400g to 380g then calculate hydration as a % of the 380g (making assumption that the potato is hydration neutral).
In my experience of using cooked potato, the smoother it is, the better. Mashing with a fork is OK, but leaves small lumps. Using a potato squasher or food processor makes a smoother mix which is better IMO.
Loaves with cooked potato/sweet potato are lovely and moist, with an open crumb, a crunchy crust and good oven spring, but I think the trick is to not use too much. I have a hunch that they act a little like a tangzhong or yudane in terms of enabling more moisture into the dough without compromising its structure and handling if included in the right quantity.
There's a risk of introducing fungal (e.g., rope) or bacterial organisms that could have harmful effects on the bread itself or those that eat it.
By cooking the potatoes before they go into the dough, you can eliminate those risks.
Paul