Sweet Potato Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls . . . Let's Hear it for the Surprise Factor!

There is a small organic-farm stand in the equally small city where I live. It sits on a wide grassy lot between an old-fashioned ice cream shop and an antique store, on what serves as our town's main street. It's only been here for a few months but I really, really hope it's going to become a permanent seasonal fixture. The beautiful produce it sells comes entirely from Michigan farms, most of it not terribly far from the Detroit area, and everything is so exquisitely fresh. They strive to ensure that the produce they sell has been picked within 24 hours of reaching their stand. The items available on any given day are an eclectic mix, so the selection is kind of unpredictable, and that's one of the things I like most about the place--its surprise factor. You never know exactly what's going to be there or, more importantly, what's not.

One day this week, I thought I'd check there for basil and, hopefully, sweet potatoes. I'd seen some remarkable purple-and-reddish sweet potatoes there a couple of weeks before, and they were like no potato I had ever laid eyes on in the past. But they didn't have any at all the day I was planning to make these dinner rolls, so I just ended up buying some fragrant Jonagold apples and ripe tomatoes as my consolation prize.

It's an unequivocal treat to visit this stand, in part because the fruits and vegetables are so artfully arranged without their placement seeming contrived; all emphasis is on the incredibly vivid colors. From dusty crimson beets, to glossy eggplants, to slender carrots with long bushy greens, Peter Rabbit would risk life and limb for this stuff, drop off his loot, and then head back for more. Every time I stop here I wish I had my camera with me. I wonder what they'd do if I just showed up one day and started clicking away like a madwoman.

After purchasing the apples and tomatoes, I spent a few minutes marveling over the remarkable variety of heirloom pumpkins for sale. I had an intense impulse to take home one of everything. Knowing that it's all so fresh and, even more so, knowing that it's all from Michigan, makes this kind of produce irresistible to me. I think I could give Peter Rabbit a run for his money. We would be partners in crime.

About this recipe . . .

I ended up using two standard sweet-potatoes from the grocery store. And, as for the surprise factor, I suggest you serve these and see if people can guess their secret ingredient. My hubby, Andy, only needed to give them a few discerning sniffs before coming up with sweet potatoes as the right answer (he's good that way). He loves these rolls.

I adapted this recipe from one at the Red Star yeast site ("Pumpkin Pull-Apart Pan Rolls") that called for canned pumpkin and pumpkin spice (I omitted both). I figured a recipe from Red Star had to be good and I was about to give it a whirl, unaltered, when inspiration grabbed me. I thought sweet potatoes would likely make the rolls even better, in part because the addition of potatoes in certain bread-dough recipes seems to reliably have that effect. The rolls I ended up with were extremely good, and they seem to have an impressively long shelf life, staying soft and moist for at least two days. The potato flavor is pretty subtle, giving the rolls just a slight sweetness. This would be an excellent bread item to serve on Thanksgiving. The recipe makes 15 rolls in one 9"x13" pan. I froze about two thirds of the baked rolls after they'd cooled, and I defrosted and warmed a few of those last night in the oven on 250 degrees, wrapped loosely in foil. Served them alongside steaming bowls of white-chicken chili. They felt and tasted like they'd just been baked. This one's a definite keeper.

Sweet Potato Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Yield: 15 rolls (One 9"x13" pan)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup lukewarm water, or more
2 tablespoons milk, no colder than room temperature
1/4 canola oil
1 cup of baked sweet potato (no skin), mashed, and cooled to room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
unbleached bread flour, approximately four cups (have more on hand, just in case)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt (I used coarse kosher salt.)
1/3 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
2 and 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (or use 1 tablespoon active dry yeast)

melted butter, 1/4 cup

In the large bowl of your mixer, using the paddle attachment on the lowest speed, stir together 2 cups of the flour, the salt, brown sugar, and yeast.

In another bowl, stir together the water, milk, oil, and sweet potato. Pour all of it into the dry ingredients. Beat at medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add in the eggs, and continue beating for about 3 minutes. On lowest speed, slowly add in 1 and 1/2 cups more of the flour. If the dough seems too dry, sprinkle drops of water in a few at a time.

Use part of the remainder of your measured flour to liberally flour your work surface. Flour your hands. Dump the soft dough out onto the floury surface and knead it for at least 5 minutes; you want it to feel smooth, spongy, and elastic (it should feel tacky but not sticky). Add in additional pinches of flour as needed.

Grease, or spray with vegetable spray, a large bowl. Place the dough into the bowl, turning it over once to coat it. Cover the bowl with a piece of plastic wrap that's also been greased/sprayed; cover that with a thin dish towel. Let the dough rise at room temperature for up to two hours, or until almost doubled (whichever comes first). One way of telling when the dough is ready is to gently press a finger into it; if your finger leaves an obvious indentation that does not seem to spring back, the dough is ready to move to the next step.

Liberally grease a 9" by 13" pan with vegetable shortening.

Turn the risen dough out onto a very lightly floured surface (it's not a good idea to add much flour into the dough at this point). Have your melted butter close at hand (warm, but not hot). Very lightly flour your hands. Deflate the dough gently but firmly by pressing it with your palms.

Use a bench knife, or very sharp chef's knife, to divide the dough into three equal parts. Then divide each third into five even pieces (15 pieces total). Cover the pieces with the greased plastic wrap and let them rest, not touching each other, for about 12 minutes.

Remove the plastic wrap and shape each piece of dough into a ball, being careful to seal any seams on the bottom (if you're not quite sure of the best way to do this, here's a helpful tutorial that explains how to successfully shape dough into rounds). Dip the top of each dough ball into the butter. Place each buttered ball into the greased pan, in 3 long rows with 5 dough balls in each short row. Space them evenly, but don't worry if a few of them are almost touching. They will bake together in the oven in any case.

Cover the pan of dough with a piece of sprayed plastic wrap. Lightly cover that with the dish towel and let the dough proof (ie., let it have its final rise) for up to about 90 minutes, or until the dough leaves an impression when pressed with a finger; it won't necessarily looked doubled and that's okay.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

When the dough has risen, bake it on the middle rack of the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Check the rolls after about 18 minutes; if it appears to be browning too quickly, cover the pan loosely with foil. (The inside of the rolls should be about 190 to 200 degrees when they're all done; if you're not sure, poke an instant-read thermometer into one of the biggest rolls in the pan. I routinely do this when I'm not sure if bread is done baking.)  They will be quite golden, and dark golden on the bottom.

Remove them from the pan and let them cool on a rack.

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Dill & Sour-Cream Dinner Rolls . . . (Those Amish Ladies Sure Can Bake!)

There are, quite apparently, many things that traditional Amish cooks have pretty much mastered. Among their talents are the production of exceptionally tasty baked goods. These tender rolls, fragrant with dried dill, are a case in point. The inspiration for this recipe, which I customized partly out of necessity and partly to suit my taste, hails from The Amish Cook's Baking Book by Lovina Eicher and Kevin Williams.

This book's humble charm and lack of slick pretension are a respite from much of what one finds these days in the cookbook dept. of big bookstores. Sometimes you crave a fancy book laden with elaborately staged photos and crammed with recipes that don't seem to contain fewer than 20 ingredients each, but then again, there are days when you just can't stomach that. Sometimes simpler is truly better. When I'm feeling that way, I reach for a book like this one. (This recipe, by the way, can easily be made completely by hand. A mixer would just be extraneous. Don't you love that?)

Lovina Eicher, who lives in rural Michigan, is a member of the Old Order Amish. She pens a syndicated column, called "The Amish Cook," that appears in dozens of mainstream community newspapers (Kevin Williams is her editor and collaborator on several books). Her writing voice is warm, open, and companionable.

They say that Amish girls grow up learning how to make the most of what's available while wasting very little, and that they're taught to value meaningful work and a job well done. It sounds, too, as if Amish women on the homefront develop an appreciative awareness of the peace and creativity inherent in daily tasks like baking bread, caring for a garden, stitching a quilt by hand, and so on.

In reading Eicher's book, I kept thinking that we "Englishers" (one term for us non-Amish folks), could likely learn a thing or two from certain aspects of their down-to-earth approach to life. That they're able to sustain their quiet lifestyle as the modern world swirls around them is kind of astonishing. I wonder if they must be uniquely strong in character, or maybe just really brave, in ways that we can scarcely fathom? What do you think?

 
About this recipe . . . 

What did I change? Well, these rolls were supposed to contain cottage cheese (the original recipe in the book, just fyi, is called Dilly Bread and can make one standard size loaf or one dozen rolls). I, however, am not crazy about cottage cheese and didn't have any on hand anyway, so I substituted a mixture of two-thirds sour cream and one-third cream cheese, and that worked out really well. I also used milk instead of water, clover honey instead of white sugar, and instant yeast instead of active dry. I altered the assembly of ingredients somewhat, and lengthened the rising and proofing times a bit. All in all, things worked out just as I'd hoped and these were extremely delicious, tender, and aromatic rolls. I served them at dinner, warm in a basket, along with seasoned, oven-baked chicken breasts, and fresh cole slaw. Yum.

Dill & Sour-Cream Dinner Rolls

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Yield: 12 medium size rolls or one standard size loaf of bread

2 and 1/2 cups bread flour (I use unbleached.)
1 and 1/2 tsp. instant yeast (or, if you use active dry, 1 package; proof it first)
1 Tbsp. dried onion flakes
1 generous tsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. dried dill weed
1/4 tsp. baking soda


2/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1/3 cup cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup warm milk
2 Tbsp. honey (I used clover honey.)
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1 egg, large

1/4 cup melted unsalted butter to brush onto rolls before and after baking.



In a medium size bowl, whisk together the flour, along with the instant yeast, dried onion flakes, kosher salt, dried dill weed, and baking soda.

In a large bowl, combine the sour cream and cream cheese until the cream cheese is well dispersed and there are no longer any large lumps.

Mix in the honey and butter, then the warm milk and the egg.

Add the flour gradually to the wet ingredients, mixing with a dough whisk or large fork until the dough starts to look somewhat shaggy and uniformly moist.

Lightly flour a clean work surface; dump the dough out onto it and knead the dough by hand for a few minutes, until it's smooth and elastic. (If you like, do the window-pane test to determine when it's ready; pull off a small glob of dough, no bigger than the size of a walnut, and gently stretch it, pulling it very slowly in opposite directions with both hands, while holding it up to the light. When you can begin to see through it without it tearing, then it's done being kneaded.)

Place the dough in a greased (or vegetable sprayed) bowl, turning it so it's lightly coated all over. Cover the bowl with a greased/sprayed piece of plastic wrap, and cover that lightly with a dish towel; place the bowl in a nice warm spot.

Let the dough rise for at least one hour, until it's almost doubled in size. Because this is a rich dough, relatively speaking, it won't rise quickly and dramatically. I let mine rise for about 70 minutes.

Dump the risen dough out onto your floured work surface again and deflate it with your hands, pressing with gentle firmness. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (I typically use a bench knife to do this).

Round each piece of dough into a ball shape, pinching any seams together; you want to create a little surface tension on the top of the ball. Let the balls of dough rest on your work surface, covered by the greased plastic wrap, for about 12 minutes. Again pinch any loose seams on the bottom of the balls and place all 12 of them  an equal distance apart on parchment paper (or use a silicone baking mat, as shown here) placed on a half-sheet pan.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly cover the top of the shaped dough balls with the greased plastic wrap, then cover it with the dish towel, and let them proof (have their final rise) in a warm spot for about45-50 minutes. They'll puff up a bit, but not significantly. Brush the proofed dough balls with melted butter. 

Bake the rolls for approximately 15 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden and the bottoms are deeply golden. As soon as they emerge from the oven, brush them again with the melted butter; it will soak in almost instantly.

Let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes, then move them to a rack to finish cooling. Or, eat them warm from the oven--they're fantastic that way!

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