GMA COOKIE'S SWEET POTATO RAISIN BREAD
GMA COOKIE'S GOLDEN GLOW RECIPE
The grandkids have called me Grandma Cookie since they were tiny; I always showed up with my little dog named "Cookie". And since I also love to cook, I've kept the moniker though little Cookie dog has been gone for a good while now.
I create bread recipes for my breadmaker. Traveling in Alaska in 1992, I stayed with a lovely family who had a breadmaker and thought, Gee, I can do that! Loved that smell while baking, loved that warm bread! What's not to like?
And a few years later, taking a writing seminar in Blue Ridge GA I ran into a gal who only baked bread the "old fashioned way", with her hands...but hey! she had a hubby to help with all that kneading and rising and kneading: you get the picture. Anyway we collaborated on a bread article subsequently published in Georgia Magazine (March 2000) we called "Battle of the Breads".
Here's my latest invention, creation, whatever, pictured above. I've since expanded (oh, yes, expanded is the word!) to include Sweet Potato Dog Biccies which I hope to sell on eBay. By the way, eBay published an interview with me in their Sept. 28th newsletter, so if you'd like to see what I sell and what I look like, take a peek at that. Look for: 772geraldine to check it out. Meanwhile, back at the lake:
Gma Cookie's 'Golden Glow' Sweet Potato Raisin Bread
Place in bucket: combination of 1/3 cooled potato water, 1/3 mashed sweet potato and 1/3 can milk, add about another tablespoon water, keep it handy. I'll explain in a minute.
Measure into bowl using a measured sifter:
3 cups bread flour: I use King Arthur plain bread flour, which you can either get in the grocery store, order online or go to Logan Turnpike Mill south of Blairsville, just before you get to Pappy's marketplace. I buy there because I can get it in bulk. King Arthur is very high quality.
Into sifter on top of the flour add 1‑1/2 Tablespoons brown sugar, packed. 1‑1/2 teaspoons sea salt, 2 or 3 shakes of cinnamon.
Sift dry ingredients into the bowl, pour into bucket on top of liquid. Push around with your spatula til it's more or less even in the bucket; in center of dry ingredients make a little hole, add 2 teaspoons yeast.
Cut 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter from a stick, cut it in four pieces and place one piece in each corner of the bucket. If butter is ice cold heat in the microwave til soft.
Place bucket in machine and hit start button. While dough is in first mixing, keep an eye on it, help it form with a spatula if necessary, it should clean the sides of the bucket, not be too gooey or too stiff. If it's not cleaning the sides after about 2 minutes, add a small amount of the water you've kept aside, like half a tsp. Let it go on, if still too stiff add a tiny bit more.
Put 1/2 cup raisins in the mixing bowl that had flour in it, add a dash of cinnamon and brown sugar so they get unstuck from each other. Your bread machine will signal when it's time to add them. (sometime during the second mixing cycle)
TIPS: 1. Don't use same spoon to measure yeast that you measured salt with.
2. Be sure your water in the bucket is cooled before you continue, if it's too hot it will kill the yeast.
For Christmas, substitute golden raisins and cut up dried apricots for a truly GOLDEN GLOW!
As you've probably figured out, it's called "Golden Glow" because the sweet potatoes give it a beautiful golden crust.
ENJOY!
MCN: CW6RC-DNUA4-CP99L
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