Bread basics from pizza dough - Sweet Potato and Chive bread

OK, so you're a pizza expert -but let's face it, how much pizza can you eat? So let's fool around with that dough.

Ingredients -
flour
yeast
brown sugar
a sweet potato
chives (a good bunch or two)
salt

Let's start with a basic pizza dough add some cool stuff and make a nice lookin' loaf of Sweet Potato and Chive bread.


Yeasting
First let's wake up the yeast by proofing it. Take two cups of warm water, add a quarter cup of brown sugar to feed the little nasties and then sprinkle two and a half teaspoons of yeast on top. While they are awakening, let's peel one good sized sweet potato and then cube it so it can be cooked relatively rapidly. Boil the tater while you cut some fresh chives into thin slices. This photo is from Michael Ruhlman's food blog - the guy writes beautifully about foods and the people who cook (and his wife takes some nice photos) http://blog.ruhlman.com/

Once you have the potatoes nice and soft (check 'em with a knife), drain them and let them cool, we are going to add them to our dough, but we don't want to kill the yeast by adding them while they are too hot. While they are cooling you can play with Will for ten minutes.

Now that tater has cooled down to just warm and not hot, add it to the yeast - sugar mixture. They will get mashed as you add flour and do your kneading. Add two teaspoons of salt (Mom always thinks there is too little salt), your chives and some flour (start with a couple of cups). No sense in measuring the flour, just start dumping it in and stir the dough until it begins to thicken up. Take the dough out of the bowl and place it onto a floured bread board.


Kneading
Knead it for 4 to 5 minutes. Enjoy the bread - people who look for no knead recipes are wimps - this is what breadmaking is all about - roll it under the heels of your hands, fold it over on itself and rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll it and fold it under the heels again. Keep working it to allow the gluten to form - the gluten will catch the carbon dioxide and allow the bread to rise. You will be adding flour the whole time you are kneading it so don't worry about measuring it during this stage, just keep the flour container next to you and grab a handful every twenty seconds or so. When the dough is nice and stretchy and you are tired (and the dough isn't sticking to your hands any longer), grab the dough ball in your two hands, thumbs on top and stretch the dough from the top around to the bottom as if you were plumping up a pillow. Stretch the area under your thumbs and tuck it underneath with your fingers. Hide all those seams on the bottom of the loaf. Set it back into the original bowl that you have now sprayed with oil so the dough will pop out a little easier after the rising process. Cover with a dish towel and set somewhere comfy for an hour or two - no big deal, you can go to Safeway, mow the lawn (har, har), send an email to your son, whatever - it will be there whenever you are ready.

Baking - once the dough has doubled in size let's bake it. Place a casserole dish that you have sprayed with oil inside the oven and fire the oven up to 450 degrees . We want the dish to be nice and hot when we place the dough inside. When the oven is ready, use your hand to scoop the dough out of the bowl. I snake my fingers down the edge into the area where I sprayed the oil and gently try to get under the dough. I don't want to beat it up too much and lose all of my rising. Hold the dough ball in your two hands and again stretch the dough from the top to the bottom as if you were smoothing out that pillow. Stretch the area under your thumbs and tuck it underneath with your fingers. Do that a couple of times till the top of the dough ball is tight and smooth and it is ready to enter the oven. Remove the casserole dish and set the dough ball inside. Sprinkle a half teaspoon of flour over the top for aesthetic reasons and then with a nice sharp knife make an "X" in the top of the dough ball. The x should be about 3 inches by 3 inches across and about a quarter inch deep.

Place dish and dough back into oven for 10 minutes (set your timer) at the 450 setting and then lower temperature to 350 degrees for about 30 more minutes (again don't forget timer). A large loaf may not be cooked enough in the center of the loaf, so I usually shut the oven down and let the bread remain inside as the oven cools. To be sure, before you turn off the oven check the bread interior with a cake tester or toothpick - does it come out clean? If yes, you are ready to roll, any gooey dough inside and you need some more cooking time. A big loaf can fool you with a nice crust that is browning beautifully but it may still need 15 more minutes. Check to be sure.

Eat while warm with butter.