Servings: 2 Loaves
Prep time: 30 Minutes, spread over two days
Cook time: 20 Minutes
Difficulty: Moderate

Day One
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
1/2 cup potato water
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
1 package of yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 tsp. Salt

Day Two
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
Topping
2 Tbs. melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs. Cinnamon

Day One
In a large bowl, mix together the mashed potatoes, potato water, butter, sugar and salt. Mix in the dissolved yeast. Stir in the flour. Cover bowl with a towel and set dough aside in a warm place to rise overnight or until it doubles.
Day Two
Next morning, add and mix in the beaten eggs, sugar, and flour. The dough will be stiff, but be patient, the ingredients will combine in a few minutes of stirring. You can instead put the dough on a breadboard and knead it rather than stirring.
Set the dough aside in a warm place to rise until it doubles.
Separate the dough in half. Knead each half into a circular loaf shape. Place each loaf into a greased pie pan.
Set loaves aside in a warm place to rise until doubled. Preheat oven to 400F. Spread the tops of the loaves with melted butter.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle the mixture on the loaves. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Let cool in the pan for about five minutes then remove to cooling rack.

I have the honor of being the holder of some of the family recipes for my generation. One of them is Dearing Goulash, which is a depression era pre-cursor to Hamburger Helper. Another is Dearing Christmas Cookies, which are a buttermilk cookie with powdered sugar frosting. Dearing Keuchen is the recipe that has the firmest of German roots. Keuchen translates to cake. This is not cake by our definition. It is a sweet yeast bread. It requires three risings so you need to be prepared to allot some time at home to make it. If you enjoy baking bread you will love this. It is truly delicious and is worth the work. We have always eaten it with the holiday meal. We slice it thick and butter it while it is still warm. Many German recipes incorporate leftovers of previous meals. This recipe calls for mashed potatoes and the water left over from boiling the potatoes. I rarely plan ahead well enough to use actual leftover potatoes and water. Usually I find myself boiling and mashing potatoes just for the Keuchen.