Photo courtesy of Kami Stafford. pipersdreamweaver.com

• Home
• Energies and Gunas
• Gunas in food
• Herbs, Spices, and Herbalism
• Ethics
• Guidelines
• Menu Planning
• Recipes
• Book List
• Web Links
• About Me
  
• Contact Me

This is a family recipe from Poland. It takes a lot of time, but not concentrated time. It is best done on a day when you are going to be at home anyway, and doing other things, with periodic breaks from the main thing you are doing that day to attend to the breadmaking.

This bread has a fairly high fat content by itself. If you desire a lower-fat bread, please consider the Italian Bread.

This bread is excellent when served right out of the oven, with butter if desired, or may be kept for several days at room temperature wrapped in plastic bags, kept sealed.

Guna - Tamas

Ingredients

• 1 potato, peeled
• 1 quart water
• 2 tbs sugar or honey
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp salt (optional)
• 1 package fresh or dry yeast, or an equivalent amount of dry yeast from a jar
• Approximately 2 lbs flour

• Boil potato in water until soft.
• Remove from heat, and set aside until cool.
• Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in another cup of lukewarm water. Add sugar. Place in a warm dark place, such as the oven with a pilot light, until the yeast is frothy
• Mix cool potato and water with yeast mixture in large pan or bowl. This should be large enough to accomodate the fully-risen bread dough - approximately 1-2 gallons.
• Add oil
• Add flour and salt.
• Mix and kneed well, for approximately 10 minutes. Add flour as necessary to have as much flour mixed into the liquid as it will absorb. Return to warm dark place until double in size.
• Kneed again, adding flour if necessary. Return to warm dark place until double in size. This is the first rising.
• Kneed again, adding flour if necessary. Return to warm dark place until double in size. This is the second rising.
• (Optional third rising)Kneed again, adding flour if necessary. Return to warm dark place until double in size.
• Pour oil into loaf pans, or baking pans. Grease all surfaces. It should be heavily enough oiled on the bottom that some should be standing in the pan.
• Kneed bread again. Divide it into loaves, filling approximately half the loaf pan, or form into rolls about the size of your fist, as desired. Roll dough around in pan so that all surfaces are thoroughly oiled.
• Return pans to warm dark place. Allow to double in size.

Cooking

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Brush the top of all loaves and rolls with oil using a pastry brush or paper towel. Place all pans in oven for 20-25 minutes.
• Open oven, and oil top of all loaves again using pastry brush or paper towel. Bake for another 20-25 minutes.
• Remove bread from oven, and place on wire rack or on plates, platters, or trays. Brush all surfaces of all loaves and rolls again with oil, using pastry brush or paper towel.

Yield: 2 large loaves

Serving

• Allow to cool enough so you don't burn yourself while sampling. Allow to cool completely before storing.
• Keeps for several days tightly wrapped in plastic bags, or may be frozen for several months.
• Unbaked dough may be frozen for several months.