Potato Cake/Bread

With sundry scrumptious potatoes, what better thing to bake than potato cake/bread?! Banana bread and pumpkin bread exist; surely potato bread (NO, NOT THE LOAF/SLICE VERSION AT THE STORE) is the next best thing ever? Carbs on carbs? I found a banana bread recipe and used it as the basis for my potato bread/cake. My sister says that it looks more like a brownie than a bread (true, because it doesn't really rise), but it has banana-bread-like crumbs, and is very moist, so I would be inclined to say that it's a muffin... even though it's not muffin shaped.

The best part? Everyone in the family, INCLUDING MY SISTER, eats it. My sister, the most fastidious person in the house when it comes to food (she has to have her dinner arranged EXACTLY, has to eat certain foods with a FORK ONLY, won't eat in the presence of the smell of mustard etc.) eats potato cake/bread. Whoo!!!

Below are two versions; the normal version, and the lower Calorie version. The lower Calorie version... surprising tastes the same and has a similar texture to the higher Calorie version!! Wonderful! I've made four of these breads/cakes so far, so I've had time to experiment and make adjustments.

INGREDIENTS for a 3 cm tall x 20 cm square pan of cake (1200 cm^3)

120 g butter

30 g brown sugar

40 g white sugar (more if you want something sweeter)

300 g freshly mashed potato

0.75 tsp baking soda

cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

vanilla

pinch of salt

40 ml water from the pot you used to boil potatoes

1 tbsp vinegar (optional but highly recommended)

100 g whole wheat flour

100 g nuts, chocolate, dried fruit etc. HIGHLY OPTIONAL.

METHOD

1. Boil water and potatoes. Mash potatoes with baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Keep hot water in pot.

2. Cream sugars with butter. The result is a soothing, creamy, beige substance.If you feel like it, throw in an egg BUT IT IS NOT NECESSARY, and DO NOT ADD WATER in STEP 3.

3. Mix creamed butter with mashed potato, water, and vinegar. Note that the butter melts.

4. Fold in 25 g flour. Do this 4 times. You should have a rather light, gooey batter the consistency of pudding. Throw in OPTIONAL nuts/chocolate etc.

5. Spread evenly into a baking dish (greased with the butter wrapper).

6. Bake on the bottom shelf of an un-preheated oven at 177 degrees F/350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes.

7. Let bread/cake sit in oven for an hour or two or whenever you think it looks cooked.

8. Eat, or freeze it for later.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD if you are running low on time

1. Mix everything in a bowl. It will look ugly and lumpy. Just keep mixing. It will get much smoother.

2. Bake on the bottom shelf of an un-preheated oven at 177 degrees/350 degrees for 25-28 minutes.

3. Stick a fork into the bread/cake and if it comes out clean, it's done.

Because I'm kind of upset with the celerity of butter consumption due to this recipe (120 g of butter within 2 hours...), especially for my mum, I tried to make a lower calorie version that would still neatly crumble, stay moist, and be bready/cakey-textured. It looks the same:

INGREDIENTS FOR THE LOWER CALORIE VERSION (20 cm square pan)

60 g butter

20 g brown sugar

6 sachets of artificial sweetener

300 g freshly mashed potato

0.75 tsp baking soda

cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

vanilla

pinch of salt

120 ml water from the pot you used to boil potatoes

1 tbsp vinegar

100 g whole wheat flour

100 g nuts/chocolate/etc. (OPTIONAL)

METHOD

1. Boil water and potatoes. Mash potatoes with baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Keep hot water in pot.

2. Cream sugar and artificial sweetener with butter. The result is a soothing, creamy, beige substance.

3. Mix creamed butter with mashed potato, water, and vinegar. This will look ugly.

4. Fold in 50 g flour. Fold in another 50 g flour. You should have a rather light, gooey batter the consistency of pudding. Throw in OPTIONAL nuts/chocolate etc.

5. Spread evenly into a baking dish (greased with the butter wrapper).

6. Bake on the bottom shelf of an un-preheated oven at 177 degrees F/350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes.

7. Let bread/cake sit in oven for an hour or two or whenever you think it looks cooked.

8. Eat, or freeze it for later.

Again, the lower Calorie version tastes the same as the higher Calorie version, although it looks uglier when you're mixing the ingredients together. Both have similar textures; if you get something that's more gooey than crummy (so, more like coconut pudding than like a cake), you should bake it for a few more minutes.

I made a coconut version, which wasn't as tasty as the plain version, surprisingly (too chunky). The walnut/pumpkin seed version was pretty good, though, and I enjoy encountering chunks of potato, so my next potato recipe will most likely be something sweet with huge chunks of potato.

I know that my opinion doesn't count for this, but the potato bread/cake looks, tastes and feels like banana bread. I think it's the nutmeg, vanilla, and potato texture that sort of... give off a banana-y aura. Neither my mum nor my brother agree with me. Maybe I'm just going bananas. (haha!)