We don’t normally buy instant mashed potatoes, but when friends offered us a couple packets at the end of their Alaska camping trip last summer, we came up with a good use for them.

The packets of instant mashed red potatoes remained in our pantry for over a year – until the other day when I was thumbing through a friend’s bread machine recipe book and saw that potato bread could be easily made with instant mashed potatoes. Let the experimenting begin!

The potato bread recipes I came across included lard, butter, milk and salt. Since the pre-mixed potato packet already had many of these ingredients, I adjusted the recipe to fit packet at hand. If you make this recipe with plain instant potatoes, I’d recommend the addition of more butter and salt.

Mashed Potato Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup instant mashed potatoes
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp yeast

Directions

1. Rehydrate instant potatoes according to directions.
2. Mix in butter.
3. Place potato mixture, milk, water, flour, sugar and yeast into bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Turn on dough setting.
4. Turn out dough onto floured surface.
5. Split dough into two pieces and knead into loaf shapes that will fit into loaf pans.
6. Bake in oven preheated to 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Loaves will sound hollow when tapped.