No-Water-Added 85% hydration Sweet Potato Baguettes

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sweet potato baguettes

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you, high hydration stiff dough paradox!

I chose to postpone my quest for soybean baguettes for awhile, turned out it's a bit frustrating trying to get good enough results using flour so fatty. I love the flavor though. Might make ones again as batards with chocolate chips.

So I had too many sweet potatoes on hand, I decided to make baguettes.

I had beef with my outlandish complainer neighbor about me practicing flute, I forgot adding salt lol.

I apologise for the messy and hasty post, I had plenty of things on my plate (still have!), but I found something interesting, I thought it might be worth sharing

Mixer and food processor are mandatory. Dough is too stiff and sticky to be worked by hand.

 

Summary:

Fine bran starter (bran:sugar:water 8:1:3), all sweet potato puree levain, 14% protein bread flour, 23% sweet potato by dry weight (assuming sweet potato is 79% water), gas deck oven, plyboard & parchment, electric water spray, couche, 12 hours levain, 23% prefermented flour, windowpane, spiral mixer, cold bulk, 3 stages levain, steamed and pureed sweet potatoes, autolyse

 

Tasting and Verdict

The bread is surprisingly sweet, just like eating crispy leavened potato, and the absence of salt makes the sweetness really shine. Oh, and they're sooooo soft. The Asians will love them.

Will I make them again? I personally don't like baguettes that bend after cooled down like they're having erectile dysfunction. I feel 70% hydration is the limit before baguettes start to bend. Maybe I'll try reducing the potato next time to achieve lower hydration.

Regards,

Jay

 

The list of tantalizing details here offer a delicious accretion of meaning, Jay. So much so that they kind-of constitute a short story:  an oafish neighbor complaining about the the flute ... pausing the use of fatty flour ... too many sweet potatos ... the preference for rigidity ... I mean, there are just so many intriguing things going on. 

Your baguettes look great, but the flop must be hilarious. I assume you used orange sweets. Next time (if you've consumed your current surfeit), maybe try white sweets, which are a bit starchier and less sweet. I might be tempted also to up the %age of bread flour, as a bit more gluten would likely help the poor baggies withstand gravity.

Cheers!

Rob

Ha!

I have bipolar disorder, and have harnessed hypomanic episodes to increase productivity without crashing :D

About baguettes with erectile dysfunction, I noticed that with other flours too. 70% is really the limit of my preference where baguettes don't bend.

I feel soft crust is worse than stale bread

And I don't know much about sweet potatoes, but this variety I love for it's honey-like flavor and melt-in-mouth quality

Jay