POTATO AND SAFFRON BREAD

This is not a Cornish recipe, although it could be! This beautiful savoury bread, with the wonderful aromatic flavour we all love, is just perfect in sandwiches or just to butter and eat. I have another recipe using these two ingredients and I will be posting that before long. This is a moist loaf, that keeps well too. I just love yeast cookery!! Have I mentioned that before??

You will need 8 oz of potato, mashed, then cooled [do not add anything]. Keep 7 fl oz of the boiling potato water and use it for soaking 1 teaspoon of saffron strands. [see note at bottom] Soak for at least 30 mins, preferably longer. You will then need to reheat until tepid.

In your mixer with a dough hook [or a bowl to knead by hand] place:

1 lb strong white bread flour

2 teaspoons dried fast action yeast

1 teaspoon runny honey

1 oz softened butter

1½ teaspoons salt

pepper to taste - I used a little white pepper

1 egg

the mashed potato

you can also add a little mustard powder if you wish

Pour in the saffrony potato water, bring it all together then begin kneading. I put the timer on for 10 mins from the start. Try not to add too much extra flour while kneading by hand, but it is a soft dough.

Put to rise in the bowl, covered in a cling film tent, in a warm place until well doubled in size, knock back, shape into a flatish round, then place on a lightly greased baking sheet to rise again. I used a pedal bin liner to cover now. Bread needs a warm and cosy atmosphere!

Turn your fan oven on to 200C. Give the bread a very light dusting of flour, then slash with a VERY sharp knife. Making 3 or 4 diagonal cuts, then turn and make 3 or 4 more in the opposite direction. Making little diamond shapes. You can only do this with an extremely sharp knife or a lamé bread scorer. This has a razor blade in it and I find it invaluable for slashing bread. see pic on my Blog. 

Bake your loaf for approx 30 mins. Just delicious. Serve with butter!!

NOTE: buy saffron online. It is so much cheaper and even though it might not be Valencian, it is still good quality. The last lot I ordered was Iranian and cost me £3 for 1gr.

A fraction of the price in supermarkets. To give you an idea, 1 gr of the above is enough to flavour 3 lbs of flour for saffron buns [about 50].