sweet potato rolls, part 2

Try as i might, i could not get these things out of my head. you'll laugh, but i had to show restraint while buying sweet potatoes because bringing home a dozen would mean that i would make a dozen batches of these things. so i bought one.

The recipe itself was left mostly unchanged; i steamed the peeled and cubed sweet potato with some dried thyme, and then all of the herb bits that stuck to the cubes went into the dough, so there are little green flecks all mixed in that make it look savory. i overnight fermented them and then shaped them a little differently. and took a hundred photos.

Sweet Potato Rolls
makes 12 to 18 rolls

1 sweet potato, baked
1 cup milk
1/2 cup white or brown sugar
3-4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Bake the sweet potato for approximately 45 minutes at 375. Remove the oven and let cool.

Combine the sweet potato, sugar, and milk and stir to make a paste. Mix in 2 cups of the flour, the salt, the yeast, and the spices until thoroughly combined. Add more flour a quarter cup at a time. Mix in after each addition until you have a dough that is tacky but which you can handle with wet hands. When you hit the proper consistency, remove from the bowl and knead by hand for 5 to 10 minutes.



Set the dough aside to rise in a covered bowl for 45 minutes to an hour.

Divide into a dozen or so pieces, and shape by doing the following:

make your hand look like a spider by having all of your fingertips on the countertop and your palm in the air. put a dough piece inside and, using the outside of your palm, make fast, small circles for about 30 seconds. the dough shouldn't look like a perfect clay ball, but it should look pretty spherical. Peter Reinhart does a better job of explaining this, but it creates surface tension on the top so that it'll puff up and not out, like the last batch did.

Place each dough ball on a big piece of parchment paper that you have dusted generously with cornmeal. this paper is lining a tray of some kind. i used a glass Pyrex casserole dish (9x13?) because it can fit into my fridge and comes with a lid. refridgerate overnight.

Next day, take the dough out a full two hours before you want to bake so it has time to come up to room temperature and rise a little. bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.
the crust turns out a lot better using the "spider hand", and the overnight fermentation makes the bread taste more complex. i should know. i just ate two before breakfast.