sweet potato bread

I am constantly looking out for new bread recipes and when I heard about this famous 17hr bread method, I knew I had to give it a try. I manage to coax my sis into bringing back a copy of the book from HK as it wasn't available here. This book is written by a famous HK blogger and this method, is apparently failproof plus it promises soft fluffy bread due to the extended hours of low temperature proving.



I chose to start off with the sweet potato bread simply because it looks the prettiest. The intital starter dough felt dry, I had to add in more water for it to feel 'right'. The main dough, after the addition of the starter dough was very wet. I wonder did the moisture come from the condensation of the starter dough (out from the fridge). It wasn't hard to manage but it was not easy either, trying to shape a wet dough.

The bread is indeed soft but a little too chewy. I want to think it is because of the sweet potatoes that changes the properties of the bread. Overall, it is a easy recipe to follow and the extended proving time means you don't have to stay at home whole day just to jagar your dough. I will try another recipe, probably the one with the mixed nuts, highly recommended by E.

Sweet Potato Bread
(extracted from Natural Breads Made Easy)

Pre-ferment Dough
377g bread flour
216g water
11g fresh yeast
5g sea salt
11g skim milk powder

Dissolve the yeast in water, add bread flour, sea salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft. Cover the dough in cling wrap. Refrigerate and let it prove for 17 hours.

Dough
162g bread flour
16g skim milk
5g sea salt
65 sugar
135g water
5g fresh yeast
43g unsalted butter
269g mashed purple sweet potato

Fillings
Mashed sweet potatoes

Knead all ingredients of dough together (except butter). Add pre-ferment dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smmoth. Add butter, knead until elastic.

Prove the bread until double in size, divide it into 16 pieces and let them rest for another 20min.

Flatten each ball and wrap with mash potato fillings, let it rest until double in size and bake in preheated oven at 170-180deg for 30-35min.