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Sweet potato rolls
Makes 15 rolls. Perfect holiday rolls.
Ingredients
- 1 small orange-fleshed sweet potato (6 ounces), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- Salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing and about 3 tablespoons melted butter for brushing the rolls
- 4 cups/512 grams all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (1 envelope)
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
Directions
- In a small saucepan, combine the sweet potato with enough water to cover. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn down the heat to medium and gently boil until the sweet potato is very tender when pierced with a knife, 10 to 13 minutes.
- Drain and transfer the sweet potato to a large bowl. Mash with a potato masher or fork. Add the buttermilk and 1/4 cup of the butter.
- With a stand mixer, beat the sweet potato mixture with a paddle attachment at medium-low speed until fairly smooth, about 5 minutes. Add the flour, yeast, sugar, eggs and 1.5 teaspoons salt and mix on medium-low speed, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed with a spatula, until the dough is smooth and sticky and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Add a little more flour if the dough is very sticky. This can take as long as 15 minutes.
- Grease the inside of a large bowl with butter. Transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free spot for about 1.5 hours, or until it has more than doubled in size.
- Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with more butter. Place the dough on a clean, ungreased surface and divide it into 15 equal pieces, each weighing about 65 grams. Working with one piece of dough at a time, cup each piece beneath your palm and work in quick, circular motions to form a tight ball, with only a tiny seam along the bottom. Arrange the dough balls in three evenly spaced rows of five within the greased pan.
- Brush the balls with butter, loosely cover the pan and set aside in a warm place until the balls have turned puffy, doubled in size, and fill the pan, about 1 hour.
- ALTERNATIVELY: after loosely covering the pan, refrigerate overnight. Remove from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before baking, but ideally more.
- About 15 minutes before the rolls are done rising, heat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake the rolls until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack. Brush the rolls gently with a little more butter.
- Let cool for 10 minutes, and then turn out the rolls onto the rack and invert again so they are bottom-side down. Let cool for about 20 minutes before serving.
Reference