Homemade Potato Rolls, So Soft and Buttery

Potato Rolls Make the Most Amazing Hamburger Buns and Dinner Rolls.

Soft and buttery, these potato rolls are a genius use of leftover baked potatoes and make the most amazing dinner rolls or hamburger buns.

Most Sunday mornings you'll find me at our kitchen table amidst a pile of cookbooks, planning my family's weekly menu.  Since these days, I really only make dinner 3 or 4 times a week (my kids are teenagers with differing schedules), this Sunday ritual is largely an excuse to peruse the recipes of favorite cookbooks.

Cookbooks are one of my most serious obsessions. I have so many that there's no way I'll ever cook ¼ of the recipes in them. Especially since I keep ordering more.

I treat them more like novels, bringing new cookbooks and old favorites to bed with me at night to read while sipping a glass of wine. It's an absolutely delicious ritual.

The stack of evening reading material residing on my bedside table right now:

From Julia Child's Kitchen... because I'm always reading one of Julia's cookbooks.

Eat Me... a wildly entertaining cookbook by a most eccentric cook.

Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream... part cookbook, part chemistry text book, this book is teaching me stuff about ice cream I never knew I never knew.

The French Menu Cookbook... a book from which I've never cooked a single thing, and maybe never will, but learn something every time I open it's pages.

And, Frommer's Costa Rica... because my husband and I are going there. This Saturday. Hold on for a moment while I do a happy dance.

Ok. Back to Potato Rolls.

While planning the weekly menu last Sunday, I couldn't get this Instagram image from The Smitten Kitchen out of my head:

You see why, don't you? I mean, yum. YUM! Feeling like our family needed hamburgers to be on the week's menu, I clicked over to The Smitten Kitchen to see what was up with this particular version. The recipe is based on recreating a Shakeshack burger at home, which are apparently always served on Martin's potato rolls.

Now, I've got nothing against Martin's rolls. I just prefer to make all things bread related myself whenever possible.

I think all of us need more homemade bread in our life.

And no, that is not a pretentious wishful thinking kind of statement.

From basic, every day dinner rolls, sandwich bread and flour tortillas, to more impressive treats like chocolate almond babka, homemade bread is just not that difficult. Especially when you consider that the payoff is generally SO much better than what you'll find on the grocery store shelves. In other words...

Homemade bread is something for which the reward far outweighs the effort.

I love things like that. I want to fill my entire life with things like that.

So, this week I made some Potato Rolls. I also followed the Smitten Kitchen burger instructions (more or less) to serve my family yummy cheeseburgers for dinner. And you know what?

Everyone was home at the same time that night and we all sat down and ate them together. Which, mostly never happens these days. It was a cheeseburger miracle.

The burgers were yummy, made even yummier by the soft, buttery, lightly toasted potato buns on which they were served.

Potato Roll Bonus #1: This recipe also makes great dinner rolls

Hamburgers served on a buttery toasted homemade potato bun are undeniably delicious. But, so are potato dinner rolls served alongside... well, everything else. This recipe makes enough dough for 12 hamburger buns OR 12 large dinner rolls. It's a two for one deal.

Potato Roll Bonus #2: These buns are a great way to use up leftover baked potatoes

Ok, so leftover baked potatoes get eaten pretty fast around here. It's rare that I'm staring into my refrigerator thinking, I wonder what I can do with those baked potatoes that no one is eating? As such, leftover baked potatoes are more of a planned thing for me. As in, make so many that having a few left over is at least somewhat likely.

But, should you ever find yourself with baked potatoes that you don't know what to do with...  Well, now you do.

If your house is like mine, and baked potatoes tend to get eaten quickly, make a few extra and hide them in the back of the fridge so you can make potato rolls later in the week.

Potato Roll Bonus #3: Aside from baking the potatoes, potato rolls only take about 2 hours, start to finish.

Think about that. In just two hours, you could be eating homemade bread, fresh from your oven. Well, four if you have to bake the potatoes first. Even still, baking potato rolls is a simple way to add some comfort food to your day. And what day doesn't deserve that?

Used in this recipe:

6-quart KitchenAid Professional Mixer

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Homemade Potato Rolls

Potato Rolls

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• Author: Rebecca Blackwell
• Cook Time: 4 hours
• Total Time: 4 hours
• Yield: 12 buns

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Description

Soft and buttery, these potato rolls are a genius use of leftover baked potatoes and make the most amazing dinner rolls or hamburger buns.

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Ingredients

• 2 medium Yukon Gold or Russet potatoes
• 1 cup milk, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tbsp butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
• 3 ½ - 4 ½ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp melted butter, for brushing
• 1 tsp kosher or coarse ground sea salt, for sprinkling

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Instructions

BAKE THE POTATOES:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash potatoes thoroughly in cold water and dry. Poke each potato all over with a sharp knife, about 8-12 times. Drizzle each potato with about 1 tsp of olive oil and rub the oil over the potato to coat completely. Lay the potatoes on a baking sheet and cook for about 1 hour, until a fork poked into one of the potatoes goes in easily. Cool completely before preceding with the recipe.

MAKE THE DOUGH:

1. Add the milk, yeast and sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer and stir to combine. Let sit until the yeast is foamy, about 5 minutes.
2. Scrape the the cooled potato flesh out of their skins into the bowl along with the eggs, butter, and 1 ½ cups of the flour. Beat with the paddle attachment on high speed for about 2 minutes to break up the potatoes and incorporate them into the batter.
3. Remove the paddle attachment and replace it with the dough hook. Add 2 more cups of flour to the dough and knead on low to incorporate. Continue to knead the dough for at least 10 minutes, adding enough additional flour, about ¼ cup at a time, to create a soft, tacky dough that clears the sides of the bowl, but sticks slightly to the bottom. Once enough flour has been added to create a smooth, cohesive dough, sprinkle in the salt and continue to knead for at least 1 minute longer to incorporate.
4. Brush a large bowl with butter, or spray with non-stick spray. Turn the dough out into the bowl and cover with a piece of plastic wrap that has also been brushed with butter or sprayed with non-stick spray. Let sit until it doubles in bulk, about 45 minutes.

TO SHAPE DOUGH INTO HAMBURGER BUNS:

1. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a ball by pulling your thumbs down over the sides of the dough and pinching the dough together at the bottom. Lay 6 balls of dough on each baking sheet, spacing them evenly apart. Flatten each into a disk of dough that's roughly 3 inches in diameter.
3. Brush the rolls with 4 tbsp melted butter and sprinkle each with a bit of salt. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 20 minutes.

TO SHAPE DOUGH INTO DINNER ROLLS:

1. Coat a 9x13 baking dish with melted butter or spray with non-stick spray.
2. Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a ball by pulling your thumbs down over the sides of the dough and pinching the dough together at the bottom.
3. Place the balls of dough into the pan. Brush with the melted butter and sprinkle with salt. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature until the rolls have doubled in bulk, about 20 minutes.

BAKE THE POTATO ROLLS:

1. While the dough rises, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the rolls have risen, bake hamburger buns for 16-18 minutes and dinner rolls for 20-25 minutes. To check for doneness, insert a meat thermometer into the bottom of a hamburger bun or the center of the dinner rolls. The temperature should register at at least 190 degrees.
2. If using as hamburger buns, allow the rolls to cool completely before slicing. If serving as dinner rolls, allow to cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

NOTE: The tops of the rolls will get quite brown due to the high butter content. If you're concerned that they are getting too brown, cover the rolls loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil for the last few minutes of baking.

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