Swiss Cheese Potato Bread

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Cheese

Swiss Cheese Potato Bread

Ingredients

Recipe by: Bernard Clayton The Complete Book of Breads Page 337 Equipment: One 20 cm tube pan (angel food, bundt, or guegelhupf), greased or Teflon; 1 baking sheet. By Hand or Mixer: Measure 1.5 cups flour into a large mixing or mixer bowl and stir in the yeast, sugar, salt, potato flakes, and hot water. Beat by hand 30 strong strokes, or for 1 minute in the mixer. Add the melted butter or margarine, eggs, and Swiss cheese. Beat by hand 100 strokes, or for 2 minutes with the mixer turned to high. Stop the mixer. Stir in the balance of the flour, half cup at a time, first with the spoon and then by hand, or with the mixer flat beater and then dough hook. The dough will be a rough, shaggy mass that will clean the sides of the bowl. However, if it continues to be slack (wet), add small portions of flour. Kneading (8 minutes): Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead with the rhythmic motion of push-turn-fold. Add light sprinkles of flour if necessary. In the mixer, with the dough hook, the dough will completely clean the sides of the bowl and form a ball around the revolving hook. The dough will be smooth and elastic. Knead by hand or mixer for 8 minutes. First Rising (1 hour): Place the dough in a greased mixing bowl and pat with buttered or greased fingers. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until the dough has doubled in volume, about 1 hour. (If prepared with a new fast-rising yeast and at the recommended higher temperatures, reduce the rising times by about half.) Shaping (6 minutes): Punch down the dough, turn it onto the floured work surface, and let it rest for 2 minutes. It can be shaped in one of two ways. One is to roll it under your palms to about 51 cm in length. Lay the length of dough in the prepared pan. Overlap the ends slightly and pinch together. Or, flatten the ball of dough and, with your fingers, punch a hole in the center and widen this to slip over the tube. Either way, push the dough firmly into the bottom of the pan. Second rising (45 minutes): Cover the pan with a length of foil or wax paper and let rise until the dough has doubled in volume, 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees 20 minutes before baking. (If using a convection oven, reduce heat by 50 degrees.) Place the pan in the moderate oven. Bake until a metal skewer inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean and dry, about 45 minutes. Ten minutes before the baking is done, carefully turn the loaf out of the pan onto a baking sheet. Return to the oven. This will give the loaf a lovely overall brown that it would not otherwise have. But handle it carefully. It is fragile when hot. Take the bread from the oven. Slide the loaf off the baking sheet onto a metal rack to cool before slicing.