Tender Potato Bread – Daring Baker’s November Challenge
Hi everyone. Today it's Jane who's authoring the blog post. Since I'm participating in The Daring Bakers challenges, I'll be the one blogging. Lane will continue to blog most of the other posts.
Anyway, The Daring Bakers December Challenge was issued today. We're all supposed to wait until a specified day to post about that month's challenge, and I most certainly will respect the rules! (My philosophy is, if you don't agree with the rules of the group, don't join the group... it's that simple.)
At any rate, it looks like it will be complicated to "veganize." So, since I'm feeling a little intimidated about this as my first challenge, I decided to take last month's challenge which seemed much more vegan-friendly (and which I can post about now).
The recipe was a "tender potato bread." The recipe called for 4 medium to large baking potatoes which were supposed to be no more than 16 oz. There was some commentary about using 8 ounces if you are a beginner. Well, bread I can do (I used to make a killer cheddar cheese braided bread loaf in my pre-vegan days), but it's been a while, so I used 12 ounces as a compromise. It was only 3 small russet potatoes. They looked so insignificant in the pot!
Overall, success. But the bread really didn't rise. I don't know if that's the potatoes (dense), or the fact that my yeast might be from another century. Regardless, I was a little nervous after my first rise. The recipe can be finished in a few different ways. It makes more than one loaf. The suggestions in the challenge are loaves, rolls and focaccia. So I made a small plain loaf and a focaccia with olive oil, salt, rosemary and maui onions. Lane wandered into the kitchen several times to see what smelled so good.
Finally it was done. And while I didn't get the results I would have hoped for, the small loaf resembles a doorstop, the focaccia was good enough that we ate 1/3 of it before I got it onto the cooling rack!
I will definitely try this again, but first I need to test my yeast and see if it is time to buy a new package!
Related Information:
im a december newbie of Daring Bakers like you..im excited about our upcoming challenge..glad to discover your site!
The focaccia looks great!
Regarding the vegan baking, there are a few vegan among the DBs so feel free to pick their brains. This is a very helpful community. Welcome aboard!
Thanks Dhanggit and Tartelette,
I’m actually really excited about the group, I’m just apprehensive about this particular challenge. I probably should have waited until January to subscribe, but I couldn’t help myself!
– Jane
The potato focaccia looks great. Delighted it worked well for you. I’ve certainly had my share of “door stops”.
I think (hope) you’ll be able to get some good help from a number of the other vegans in the DBs.
You sure have the DB spirit! Welcome.
[...] looked so intriguing, I tried it anyway. It was the Tender Potato bread which I blogged about here, and it was yummy. I’m so glad I took that challenge because this one was an utter disaster [...]