A Lesson in Breadmaking

I’ve always liked potato bread. For some reason it’s a “guilty pleasure” for me. Probably because it’s not a coarse whole wheat or multi grain, which even sounds healthy, but more like eating Wonder bread…white, soft, and made from beached flour with very little nutritional value. When our friend Otti offered to teach us her recipe for potato bread, we wasted no time setting a date. 

We started the process yesterday morning with her story behind the recipe.  Years ago, shortly after the end of World War II, Otti (16-years old at the time) met an American soldier in Germany and came to the United States to be his wife.  They initially lived in his home state of Washington where he hoped to make a career of farming. One of his neighbors, known as “the Best Cook in the Grange,” made potato bread each week from an old family recipe. Whenever he was lucky enough to be at her home on baking day, he’d enjoy the bread and ask her to teach his new bride how to make it.  She was not known for sharing her recipes. However, one early morning around 6 a.m. Otti and her husband woke to the old woman’s knocking on their door. She said “Get up. We’re going to make potato bread.” Cute story, even more so to hear it from Otti with her thick German accent.

We didn’t begin making the bread until 8 a.m. and thanks to Otti, she’d already boiled and mashed the potatoes and prepared all of her bread-making paraphernalia. Step by step she took us through the process, showing us several of her home gadgets that she’d been using for the past 50+ years…a two-pan scale used to weigh her flour in metrics; an old Tupperware lid from a cake carrier that she uses to mix the ingredients; a bread slicer made in Germany; an old offset spatula for cake decorating that she uses to scrape her counter; and baking sheets she ordered from Chef’s Catalog. She loves Chef’s Catalog almost as much as she loves German-made products.

Otti proofed the yeast and then added it to a few cups of the flour, the warm potato mixture, and a small amount of shortening (original recipe called for lard). She let it rest just a bit until large bubbles began to form and then gradually added the balance of the 5 pound bag of unbleached flour.  Once it was mostly mixed together and too difficult to stir, she turned it out onto her floured countertop and began to knead. 

About ten minutes of kneading and it was ready to be oiled and placed back in the Tupperware lid and placed in her Electrolux oven, which has a warming temperature of 100 degrees. About 1-1/2 hours later the bread dough was ready to shape and bake. 

She took about half of it and made two bread loaves. The balance was made into hamburger buns and dinner rolls. In each case, about five minutes before the baking time was complete (which she didn’t actually “time”, but relied on her experienced eye), Otti removed the baking trays, brushed the bread and buns with an egg wash, and returned them to the oven for the final few minutes.

We’d come prepared with a pound of our grass-fed beef, which Verne grilled while the buns cooled a bit, and we sat down to the best hamburgers I’ve ever eaten.  From now on it’s homemade hamburger buns for us!