Potato Rolls

Potato Rolls, originally uploaded by alida saxon.

So many things to do with potatoes. I love making potato bread, and these rolls look fantastic.

This baker / photographer says:

"I've been trying forever to get a decent potato roll recipe and after so many duds I decided to make my own recipe. I used my foolproof pizza dough recipe (http://www.flickr.com/photos/seian/2125173209/in/set-201582/) as the base and worked from there. They make wonderfully tender rolls puff well and aren't at all cake-y like some potato recipes. There also isn't a ton of sugar like some recipes.

This is a very wet dough (it will seem almost frighteningly so, but with a dusting of flour and moving fast it's quite manageable and very similar to making Ciabatta. I use sweet potato for this recipe. It gives it a lovely golden-peach color and it's a healthier starch than the white potato.

Sweet Potato Rolls

1 c mashed sweet or white potato
2 1/2 c warm potato water
2 Tbsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp white or raw sugar
6 Tbsp olive or any vegetable oil
2 tsp salt
6 c all purpose flour
6 Tbsp wheat gluten

Peel and cut enough potato to make one cup mashed, boil until very tender. Do not discard the water. You will be saving this for the recipe. Yeast loves potato water. Mash or rice the potato without adding butter or milk. If you find it very dry, just use a little bit of your cooking water.

In mixing bowl put your reserved potato water, adding warm water if you don't have enough to make the full 2 1/2 cups. Add sugar and yeast and let it sit until frothy (5-10 min).

Throw everything else in but the salt. Start the mixer with your bread hook and when it's almost come together add the salt. mix on medium for 3-4 minutes scraping the sides and making sure there's no pockets of dry flour. Again, it will be a very wet dough. Don't panic and don't add more flour unless it's soupy.

Let rise until double (1-2+ hours) Dust the counter or a tea towel with flour, scrape out the dough, dust it with more flour on top. Us a pastry scraper to divide the recipe into roll sized pieces. You should get at least 20 hamburger sized rolls out of the batch. Shape them and place on parchment paper lined baking trays. Let rise until double. (30min-1hr).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spritz the rolls and inside of oven just before putting rolls in to bake. Bake for 20-30 mins until puffed, golden and the bottoms are golden as well. Done!

Notes: I don't use the pizza stone for this. I find it pulls out too much moisture for these tender rolls - they come out very crispy and sort of flat. Still good, but not like it ought to. I use my airbake pans and cook on the middle shelf for this and it works very well.

If you've got bread flour, just use 6c and 6T. I just didn't have any on hand so I use the wheat gluten.

Leave the boiled potato whole until it's just about to go in. This way it doesn't suck up a lot of excess liquid and it doesn't create lumps in the dough.

I've never made these using potato flakes but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I just suggest replacing the milk the box calls for with more water.

If you like making your breads with a Poolish, the night before boil your potato, let it cool a bit then mash it into 1c warm potato water, 1c of the flour and 1/2 T of the yeast in a large bowl. This will froth up quite a bit. The next morning prepare the remaining ingredients like normal, scraping in the poolish after the sugar, remaining yeast and water has frothed. Using a poolish is not necessary, it's just the way I like to do it since I have to cook the potato ahead of time anyway."