3 DAY POTATO FOCACCIA

A fluffy potato focaccia, made with a poolish pre ferment.

Happy Sunday & welcome back to another edition of my newsletter!

This week, we’re making a seriously next level focaccia! This one’s made with mashed potato & makes use of a poolish pre ferment, as well as a long, cold prove in the fridge. It’s soft, fluffy & has the signature dimpled top that’s full of pockets of flavour. I’ve got a super tasty sandwich planned for this bread but it’s really good on its’ own or served with a generous amount of butter or olive oil.

So I’ve been ill for most of this week, which is why this recipe’s going out on a Sunday instead of a Friday. Fortunately though, this one’s incredibly easy to make & because the dough is fermented in the fridge, most of the prep is hands off and is actually done over several days. This means that there’s minimal prep to do each day & you can leave the dough in the fridge & not worry about it!

Now, I kept my focaccia nice & simple by topping it with just olive oil & sea salt but this dough is super versatile and can be topped with pretty much anything! However, because the dough is made with mashed potato, I’d probably stick with savoury toppings.

Ben.

What Is A Poolish?

A poolish is a type of pre ferment that replaces the yeast in bread doughs. It’s similar to a sourdough starter in a way but is made from scratch by mixing flour with water & a very small amount of yeast, which is then left to ferment overnight in the fridge (with sourdough, you feed an existing starter with flour & water every day). Once the poolish has fermented, it’s added into the dough along with the other ingredients then mixed to combine.

The main reason that a pre ferment is used in bread dough is to give the bread a more developed flavour and a softer, more open crumb. These are both qualities that we want in a focaccia, which makes a poolish the ideal choice.

Baker’s Percentages

Baker’s percentages are used to show how much of each ingredient is used, compared to the total amount of flour in a recipe. The flour is mostly always 100% then the other ingredients (salt, yeast, etc.) are calculated compared to this. This just allows the recipe to be scaled up/down as needed. For example, if a recipe calls for 2% salt & the total flour weight is 500 grams, the amount of salt needed would be 10 grams…

Anyway, so a poolish is what is known as a high hydration pre ferment, which basically means that it contains a high percentage of water in relation to the flour. In this case, we’re using a 100% hydration poolish, which means that it contains equal amounts of flour & water.

When it comes to how much flour to use for the poolish, a rough guideline is to use around 20-40% of the total flour in the dough (I used 23%). However, because we’re using potato in our focaccia dough, we need to include this as part of the total flour weight. Don’t worry, this will make sense when you read the recipe!

The last component of our pre ferment is the yeast. I’ve found that dried active yeast is the best choice for this type of dough/pre ferment as it’s better for longer fermentations as apposed to instant yeast. Although you could use double the amount of fresh yeast instead. In this recipe, we’re using 0.1% dried active yeast in the poolish, so you’ll need a set of micro scales to weigh this out as it’s such a tiny amount! This may seem like too little yeast to make the bread rise but as the dough is fermented over 3 days, you really only need a minuscule amount.

Just a note! If you haven’t got a set of micro scales, I’ve included the teaspoon conversion for this recipe. Although, I would recommend a set of scales…

Making Bread With Potatoes

I love making bread with potatoes! Over on my blog, I’ve got recipes for potato burger buns, an overnight potato focaccia, biga potato pizza dough & more. It’s easily one of my favourite ways to make bread…

The reason for adding mashed potato to bread dough is that it gives it a softer, fluffier texture. But to avoid adding too much extra liquid into the dough, it’s best to bake the potatoes instead of boiling them (cooked potatoes contain around 75% water!). Plus, this means that we can add the crispy potato skin into the dough, which adds extra flavour & texture!

3 Day Prove

I’m a big fan of cold fermented doughs because it gives the bread a more developed flavour, a crisper crust & a softer, more open crumb. These are all the qualities that I like my focaccias to have so it’s how I tend to make/ferment them. I find that it’s actually easier as well, because you don’t have to keep an eye on the dough as it proves! Simply pop it in the fridge & forget about it until the following day.

The reason that this dough is fermented over 3 days, is because we’re using a poolish pre ferment, which is fermented overnight in the fridge. If you were to use regular yeast, you could shorten the fermenting/prep time down to 2 days. But honestly, I find that it’s worth the extra time!

Anyway, let’s get onto the recipe…