Rosie Makes Maggie's Potato Rolls.

Maggie's Potato rolls are easily

the best rolls I've had.

 

Here's the "recipe:"

3 medium potatoes, 

diced and simmered until tender in salted water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups water that the potatoes were cooked in

2 packages yeast

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 eggs, beaten

Enough flour to form a soft dough.

Simmer potatoes in salted water until very tender.

I leave the peels on.

Cool potato water.

Add yeast and 1/4 cup sugar to proof.

Mash potatoes with shortening and remaining sugar.

Add in proofed yeast mixture.

Add in beaten eggs.

Add flour, a cup at a time.

After about 6 cups of flour,

I turned the mass onto a floured board

and worked it around with my pastry scraper,

adding more flour as needed.

Let rest a while,

then go back to kneading.

I turned this into two greased bowls

and let rise until double.

Punch dough down and roll into small balls.

Put 1 large ball or 2-3 small balls

in greased muffin tins.

Brush with melted butter and let rise.

Bake at 375 degrees until nicely browned -

15 to 20 minutes.

Ingredients ready -

cooked potatoes

cup of sugar

2 cups potato water, slightly warm

2 pkgs yeast

baking powder

baking soda

2 eggs

I salted the potato water when I cooked the potatoes

and that had enough salt for the dough.

You may want to taste test the raw dough

to see if you have enough salt.

Pour yeast into warm potato water.

I rinse the packets out to get every bit.

Feed the yeast with 1/4 cup sugar.

My, that's lumpy sugar.

Stir to dissolve.

When the mixture is all poufy and foamy,

the yeast has proofed.

It's ready to use.

 Mash shortening into warm potatoes.

Add in sugar.

Proofed yeast mixture on left.

Mashed potato mixture on right.

Eggs.

This is how you want your yeast to look.

Bubbly.

This means it's active.

Beat the eggs and ...

...  add to the potato mixture.

Smash to combine.

Mix well.

Since the yeast was in the larger bowl ...

...  I added the potato mixture to the yeast mixture.

Start stirring and mashing the clumps.

Add in baking powder and soda.

Start adding the flour,

a cup at a time.

After 6 cups of flour,

I turned this out onto a floured board.

This is a very wet dough,

so sprinkle on extra flour as needed.

Instead of using my hands to turn the dough,

I used a pastry scraper.

I worked my way around the dough,

folding it in on itself in the center.

Sprinkle with flour as needed.

Now, I'm able to work the dough by hand.

Into a greased bowl to rise.

I believe I need another bowl.

I punched the dough down and ...

... divided it among two bowls.

I let it rise.

At this point (on Wednesday),

I covered the dough tightly

and refrigerated it.

I'll roll and bake these on Thanksgiving Day.

Fast forward to Thursday.

I turned the dough out onto a floured surface.

And I started filling muffin tins.

Some, I tripled.

Some, I made singles.

I've found out they're best in the muffin tins,

as opposed to the loaf pans.

They don't hold a rise well when not confined to a small container.

Brush with melted butter

and let rise.

I decided to make a braid too.

I baked these at 375 degrees

for about 15 minutes.

Until nicely browned.

Caution:  These are addictive.

Use these to sop up my Mushroom and Giblet Gravy.

Or slice in half the next morning

and fry it up in some butter with ham

and have yourself a wonderful ham sandwich for breakfast.