Sweet potato and rosemary boule

Dense, cakey, and moist, with a hint of floral rosemary. So filling it's almost a meal in itself, allow me to introduce a firm favourite of the women in my life.

Rosemary and potatoes, a match made in heaven

There are three smells in this world guaranteed to make me close my eyes, inhale deeply, and smile; the smell of freshly cut grass, the smell of a baking loaf, and the smell of potatoes roasting with a sprig or two of rosemary. This beautiful rustic boule (along with a morning of manual labour in the garden) allows me to combine all three in an olfactory opus in my kitchen. As I stated in the opening to this post, this boule has made me somewhat of a rockstar amongst the lady folk, even my gluten avoiding sister in law! To the point where I have had to take bread flour, yeast, and potatoes on a family holiday to bake this in a tiny electric oven that we had to feed with coins to keep running during the bake. I'm still not sure what it is that causes such unbridled emotion, but it seems to tick all the right boxes. 

Bear this boule in mind singleton bakers of the world, I might be on to something! Tweet this post

How you too can gain fame, fortune, and fancy with rustic bread (your millage may vary)

Ingredients:

• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 medium large maris piper potato
• 450g strong white bread flour
• 300g tepid water
• 10g fresh yeast (7g active dried)
• 8g fine sea salt
• 10g roughly chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 tbsp light extra virgin olive oil

Method:

1. Bake potatoes until flesh is soft all the way through, but remove before skins become too crispy as you want to retain a good amount of moisture in the potato
2. Once potatoes have cooled (this takes a lot longer than you think), skin them and pass them through a potato ricer or force them through a metal sieve with the back of a wooden spoon.
3. In a large bowl combine the flour and yeast
4. To the bowl add the salt, oil, honey, rosemary and potato and stir well with a wooden spoon until combined
5. Slowly add water while stirring until the dough comes away from the bowl cleanly
6. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead with floured hands for around 15 to 20 mins. Ensure you have turned the radio on prior to this step as the dough is incredibly tacky at first and will stick to everything until suitably kneaded
7. Place the dough into a floured bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rest in a warm place (or wrapped in a warm towel) until the dough has doubled in size
8. Knock back the dough, shape into a boule shape, cover with a well floured tea towel and prove for 15 to 20 mins
9. Brush dough with a little olive oil and cut four slahes to form a square on top of the dough
10. Transfer to a baking stone (or a thick pre heated baking tray) and bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 220 degrees. You will know it's done when the crust is a deep golden brown and the bottom will sound hollow when tapped with a finger

Protip: Place a few ice cubes in a baking tray in the bottom of your oven along with the loaf to create steam and improve the crunch and colour of your crust. Also, don't open the oven until at least 10 minutes into the bake, this is another common crust killer.

If you liked this post, please share it. If you have any questions, or would like to brag about the fame, fortune and/or fancy this boule has brought into your life please comment below.