Tender Potato Bread

This month was Round 2 for me of the Daring Bakers challenge, in which over 300 food bloggers prepare the same elaborate recipe and post about it on the same day. This month, our chosen baked good was savory, not sweet: a Tender Potato Bread with mashed potatoes mixed right into the dough. I decided to make this as my contribution to my family's Thanksgiving dinner (fortunately my Mom took care of a good bit of the rest).


Before setting out to bake this delicious bread, I perused the Daring Bakers internal blog to see if anyone had any tips or suggestions. Fortunately, in this manner I was warned that the dough was incredibly sticky due to the mashed potatoes. In fact, sticky would be an understatement. While I was kneading the dough, I had to get my Mom to gradually add in the flour for me, since my hands were literally stuck to the ball of mush. It didn't take too much flour to wrangle it into control, though, and even though it was incredibly soft (I didn't want to add too much flour for fear of making the bread tough) I decided to shape it into rolls to go with Thanksgiving dinner. Well, the dough was so soft that it couldn't hold the roll shape. When I put the balls of dough onto the baking sheet, they just flattened out into one big...sheet of bread. It was odd. But when I tore it apart into pieces to put into the bread basket and carried the hot-from-the-oven mini-loaves to the table, no one was complaining. The bread had a nice crusty top and was chewy and moist on the inside. Definitely well worth the effort.


To see hundreds of other takes on this Tender Potato Bread, formed into all sorts of shapes and topped with yummy extras, cruise on over to the Daring Bakers blog roll starting today. If you're feeling particularly daring, check out the recipe over at My Kitchen in Half Cups, whose creator, Tanna, selected this tasty treat. (Don't let the recipe's length scare you; it just contains a lot of variations.)

The MTV Video Baking Awards

Today has been, as Andy Samberg would say, a lazy Sunday. I spent most of the afternoon reading for class tomorrow, but I took a break to do some baking (despite the fact that I couldn't eat the fruits of my labor). But I was going over to Chris's to watch the VMAs, and in anticipation of the train wreck that was to be Britney Spears' "comeback" performance, I decided to bake him and Kate each a loaf of glazed strawberry bread with the leftover strawberries from the ice cream I made last week. Chris and Kate dug into the bread as we discussed the fact that we were witnessing what could be the death of American pop culture. I mean, the awards show was terrible, not just Britney's performance, but especially that. Did you see her eyes? Seriously, my strawberry bread was not the only thing that was glazed over tonight. What. A. Disaster. The whole thing. Watching me bake my two loaves of quickbread probably would have made better television. Okay, maybe not, but I'm just saying.

This post isn't going to be very exciting because not only did I not eat the bread, I also failed to take a picture of it because my camera battery is dead. However, word on the street is that this bread is delish, so here's the recipe.

Glazed Strawberry Bread
Makes 2 loaves

• 3 eggs
• 2 c. sliced strawberries
• 3 c. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. cooking oil
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 Tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until thick and lemon-colored. Mash the strawberries in a separate bowl. Add the berries, sugar, and oil to the eggs. Mix well. In another separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the berry mixture and mix until just incorporated. (It's important not to over-work the dough when you're making a quickbread.) Divide the batter evenly between 2 greased 9x5 loaf pans. Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool in the pans on a wire rack for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix together the ingredients for the glaze (the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk), adding more milk as necessary to get the glaze to the consistency of a liquidy paste. Poke holes in the top of the bread and spread the glaze evenly over the hot loaves. Allow the bread to cool. Wrap and store overnight before slicing, if possible.

Luck o' the Irish

I'm pretty psyched for St. Patty's Day on Saturday. I live in Boston, so it's one of the biggest, rowdiest, and funnest (ok, not a word) holidays of the year. Naturally, then, I decided to make my WHB post this week Irish-themed. Since beer with green food coloring doesn't really qualify as an "herb, plant, vegetable, or flower," I settled for a hearty Brown Butter Soda Bread chock full of fresh rosemary.

Soda bread is a popular kind of bread in Ireland and has been since 1840. (Don't you love useless Wikipedia trivia?) I used to think it was called "soda bread" because they put Coke into the dough, but I am a silly person, and not surprisingly, I was wrong. It's called "soda bread" because instead of yeast, baking soda is the leavening agent helping the bread to rise. The baking soda reacts with buttermilk in the dough to form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Fun, and delicious!

A lot of people add raisins or nuts to their soda bread, but my recipe, from the February 2006 issue of Bon Appetit, incorporates fresh rosemary, making it WHB-eligible. Rosemary is one of my very favorite herbs, mostly because of its incredibly fragrant smell. In addition to its yummy scent and flavor, rosemary is actually a stimulant and mild analgesic that can be used to treat headaches and poor circulation. For all you fellow beauty product addicts, it's also believed to revitalize your hair and prevent dandruff if you massage rosemary oil into your scalp. I'm a little skeptical, but it could be worth a try?

Either way, this bread is easy and delish. I'll eat a slice on Saturday morning, toasted, with lots of butter... and of course, a big pint of Guinness.

Brown Butter Soda Bread
Makes 2 loaves

• 1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 3-1/2 c. all purpose flour
• 1/2 c. old-fashioned oats
  
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 T. chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. ground black pepper, plus more for topping
• 1-3/4 c. buttermilk
• 1 egg white, beaten to blend

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375F. Stir butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until melted and golden brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir flour, oats, sugar, rosemary, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper in large bowl to blend. Pour buttermilk and melted browned butter over flour mixture; stir with fork until flour mixture is moistened. Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Knead gently until dough comes together, about 7 turns. Divide in half. Shape each half into ball; flatten each into 6-inch round. Place rounds on ungreased baking sheet, spacing 5 inches apart. Brush tops with beaten egg white. Sprinkle lightly with ground black pepper. Using small sharp knife, cut 1/2-inch-deep X in top of each dough round. Bake breads until deep golden brown and tested inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool breads on rack at least 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, which I'm hosting this week! Get me your entries by Sunday, 3pm Utah time (5pm for us East Coast-ers). Send them over to me at rhammer AT law DOT harvard DOT edu.