Recipe: Hungarian Potato Bread (bread machine)

HUNGARIAN POTATO BREAD

1 cup water (plain or potato water)
1/2 cup mashed boiled potato
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp caraway seed (optional)
1/4 tsp salt (up to 1 tsp to taste)
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

Pour the potato water or, lacking that, plain water into the baking pan of your bread machine and add the mashed potato, flour, sugar, caraway seeds if desired, salt, and yeast, following the directions for leavening that came with your particular machine.

Use the quick bake cycle for this loaf.

Notes from source: Potato bread began as an adulteration. Clean, pure wheat flour remained for centuries both expensive and hard to come by. Accordingly, millers and tradesmen used everything from talcum powder to ground bleached bones to stretch their salable supply of flour.

It's not surprising, then, that when the potato made its way to European shores, a mealed version of it was forthwith utilized to help eke out the merchants' stores of flour. What did come as a surprise was the way in which the addition of potato to the wheat flour actually improved the baked goods resulting from the mix.

In a family of five such as ours, as often as not there's a leftover potato or two to be found hiding in the refrigerator. Here's a great use for such strays. If none are to be found on the day you decide to bake this loaf and you boil up a potato just for the bread, by all means save the water in which the potato cooks to use in the dough as well.

Soft, light, and very open-textured, this bread makes superlative toast. It also makes a delightful sandwich with ham or salami (Hungarian, naturally) tucked between its slices and crisp sour pickles on the side. If the caraway seeds are omitted from the recipe, the loaf, sliced thick, makes wonderful French toast."

Source: The Complete Bread Machine Bakery Book Richard W. Langer