Pão de Batata ie Stuffed Potato Bread
Growing up, these were my absolute favourite item at my school canteen!
Soft, filling, delicious rolls you often find stuffed with requeijão a kind of cream cheese that is hard to find out of Brazil so you can use any cheese you like as an alternative. These are versatile and multipurpose so give these a try and let me know what you choose to fill yours with!
See the change it up section for the yeast version of the recipe if you don’t have sourdough.
Ingredients:
235g wholemeal bakers flour
160g Mashed boiled potatoes (more or less 2 small potatoes)
1tsp brown sugar
8g salt
25g butter softened
50g milk
1 egg
100g Starter
Method:
Have your sourdough starter ready to go by feeding it the night before.
First, boil the potatoes until soft, peel the potatoes, then mash until smooth.
Set them aside to cool.
Add all the ingredients, excluding the butter into a bowl and combine until it forms a dough.
Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes.
At this point the dough will be ugly and rough. The dough will become more and more smoother as we work with it and it relaxes in between.
After the 10 minutes of resting, the dough should be a little relaxed and easier to work with.
With sourdough, you have two options: slap and fold or place your fingers under the dough and pull it up repeatedly while spinning the bowl so you're working the dough and making it a little more elastic the more you do this motion.
As you continue to do this, the dough should start to become smoother.
Do this for a couple minutes, but if the dough starts ripping stop and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
Now, massage the butter into the dough to start with, then repeat the same movement as the previous step to work the dough into one ball again.
Let it rest for another 30 minutes.
Now it's time for the stretch and folds!
Pull one side of the dough up then fold it over the rest of the dough. Do this 4-6 times going around the dough.
Allow it to rest for another 30 minutes, then repeat the stretch and folds.
Now, let it rest for 3-4 hours at room temperature.
Do 1 more set of stretch and folds then place the dough in the fridge over night.
In the morning, preheat your oven to 200C.
Cut the dough up into even pieces then roll them into a ball. At this point you can let them rest on a tray for another 10-15 minutes and bake them as is or you can fill them.
To fill, use flour so the dough doesn't stick to the bench. Press the middle of the dough to make a cavity, fill with a bit of cream cheese or any filling you would like then pull the dough over your filling and roll again to seal the dough.
Place your rolls on a tray and let them sit for 10-15 minutes. Coat them with an egg wash to get a nice colour in the oven. Then, depending on the size you made them, bake for 15-30 minutes or until golden.
You can eat them fresh out of the oven or like any sourdough bread, if you wait for them to cool down the crumb will have settled and you will get a fluffier roll.
I recommend eating them within 2 days for the fluffiest results or warming them in a sandwich press after that!
Change it up!
Filling:
In Brazil, the 2 most common fillings for this bread dough are cream cheese or onion and calabrese sausage.
You can absolutely fill it with anything you like! I reckon garlic and cheese for an alternative dinner roll would be delicious, or not fill it at all and treat it kind of as you would an English muffin.
Flour: I tend to make most of my bread with 100% wholemeal flour but you can change it up by doing 50/50 wholemeal/white or even use spelt flour instead!
If changing the flour, you may have to use more flour than the recipe asks for, just add a little more at a time until you feel like it's a strong dough. If you use white or spelt or a mix of these flours, you will end up with a fluffier bread for longer.
Potato:
Try to make this with sweet potato or pumpkin for a variation of flavour and colour!
I hope you enjoy it!
Sourdough Starter:
Make it with Yeast Instead!
If you don't have a sourdough starter, but still want to make this recipe:
Ingredients
285g wholemeal bakers flour
160g Mashed boiled potatoes (more or less 2 small potatoes)
1tsp brown sugar
8g salt
25g butter softened
100g milk
1 egg
7g instant yeast
Method:
Warm the milk slightly then add the sugar and yeast to the milk and let the yeast activate.
Once the yeast is ready, add the remainder of the ingredients, excluding the butter, until it forms a dough.
Allow it to rest for 10 minutes, then add the butter and knead the dough until smooth.
Let the dough now sit in the bowl for about 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size.
Preheat your oven to 200C.
Cut the dough up into even pieces then roll them into a ball. At this point you can let them rest on a tray for another 10-15 minutes and bake them as is or you can fill them.
To fill, use flour so the dough doesn't stick to the bench. Press the middle of the dough to make a cavity, fill with a bit of cream cheese or any filling you would like then pull the dough over your filling and roll again to seal the dough.
Place your rolls on a tray and let them sit for 10-15 minutes. Coat them with an egg wash to get a nice colour in the oven. Then, depending on the size you made them, bake for 15-30 minutes or until golden.
You can eat them fresh out of the oven or like any sourdough bread, if you wait for them to cool down the crumb will have settled and you will get a fluffier roll.
I recommend eating them within 2 days for fluffiest results or warming them in a sandwich press after that.
Smiles, Vic
