Everyday Epicurean

_As part of my continued experiment of baking the families bread supply, I decided to try a new recipe for the weekends bread.
Of course, I didn’t follow the recipe I had, but changed it a bit and came up with a new one, and a very pleasing result._

!/recipes/images/19.jpg (Potato Buttermilk Bread)!

h2. Stage 1 Ingredients.

* 1 cup of warm water (around 24C to 37C)
* 1 cup of potato flour
* 1.5 Tablespoons of active dry yeast
* a large pinch of sugar

h2. Stage 2 Ingredients.

* 2 cups of plain Baker’s flour
* 1 Tablespoon of salt
* 1 cup warm Buttermilk
* 2 Tablespoons of Butter (melted in the buttermilk)
* 2 Tablespoons of Sugar

h2. Stage 3 Ingredients.

* 3 to 4 cups of plain Baker’s flour

h2. Stage 1 Method.

Place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl, whisk until combined.
Leave for 10 minutes or so – yeast should start to bubble/foam.

h2. Stage 2 Method.

Add the buttermilk/butter and 1 cup of flour to the Stage 1 mix. Whisk in thoroughly, add the sugar and remaining cup of flour and salt. _By this stage you’ll need a wooden spoon as the mix is now more dough like and the whisk will not handle it._

h2. Stage 3 Method.

Gradually add the remaining flour, 0.5 cup at a time. Towards the end you will likely need to knead the flour in rather than mix it. The resulting dough should be ever so slightly sticky after kneading. (knead until springy). Do not over add too much flour or the dough will become too dry and fail to rise sufficiently.

Grease a rising bowl (large mixing bowl – about 3 times the size of the ball of dough).

Place the dough ball in the greased bowl, turn so all the dough has been greased, cover with cling-wrap and place somewhere warm for 1 to 2 hours (until dough has doubled in bulk).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured workbench and roll into a loaf shape. Place in a 680g (1.5lb) bread pan (greased) and cover loosely.

Brush the top of the loaf with either milk or beaten egg+milk glaze, and sprinkle with poppy seeds.

Allow the bread to proof for 30 mins (until it just clears the top of the bread pan) – preheat oven at 190C.

Once the dough has proofed, place in the oven and cook for 45 mins.

Turn out on a cooling rack. The base when tapped should sound hollow.