Soft and fluffy

Both Indians and Americans are fans of soft, fluffy rolls. Americans often either use them as an accompaniment to dinner or as a burger or slider bun. Indians love them as a delivery system for pav or pao bhaji, a wildly popular street food. Pav or pao is the word for bread and bhaji is a rich and fragrant vegetable mash shot through with butter and spices.

Or another irresistible street food tucked into a bun is vada pav. The vada is often a spiced mixture of potatoes and lentils dipped into a batter and deep-fried. This snack is drizzled within an inch of its life with various sweet, spicy, and tangy chutneys served with green chilies on the side. If you want to make this treat, head over to Cook with Manali’s vada pav recipe and see how it is done.

Homemade Potato Roll Recipe ~ The pan of baked rolls out of the oven and all golden brown.

Let’s talk potatoes

My mother, who was a nurse before raising her brood of seven, was a good cook. She made nothing fancy but fed us tasty, healthy food. And boy did she love to bake. She even did the whole "earth mother" thing and ground her wheat for the honey whole wheat bread she perfected.

And she was a proponent of using potatoes in yeast doughs. She was famous for her potato doughnuts which, in my husband's words, she made by the shopping bags full. Only 12 dozen, I say. But yes, they were so good.

Instead of the more and more popular Japanese tangzhong method of making incredibly soft and fluffy bread, try adding potatoes to your rolls. Besides the beautiful texture, the potato rolls will keep for days longer. However, if you want to know more about the tangzhong method, see The Perfect Loaf blog for a detailed explanation.

Homemade Potato Roll Recipe - Two slider sided buns opened to show off their fluffy interiors.

The basis for this recipe is from Jenni Field’s great blog Pastry Chef Online. I love her detailed recipes and have followed her outline fairly closely, except that I didn’t add the parmesan and garlic she included in her Thanksgiving dinner rolls. Adding potatoes to your bread dough is as easy as cooking some potatoes, mashing them, then mixing a half cup into your dough.

Equipment that helps

I normally try to stay away from special equipment, and this bread can be made without any. However, I highly recommend using the following three items for a more foolproof bread making experience. First, and especially when baking, I am most happy weighing my flour, so I recommend a scale. They are cheap.

Secondly, an instant-read thermometer is quite helpful to make sure your bread is done. You can spend a bit of money, but I use the reasonably priced Thermopop by Thermoworks (I am not being paid). An even cheaper option is the OXO digital thermometer that comes in under $20 at the time of this post.

And lastly, while it is possible to properly knead the very sticky dough by hand, it is much easier to use a stand mixer. If you want to go the hand kneading route for this potato roll recipe, head on over and watch Helen Rennie knead sticky dough.

Your turn!

There are few kitchen projects that are more rewarding than making homemade bread. Like every new process, you may need a bit of practice to make perfect, but this recipe is pretty foolproof, and the smell of baking bread is so comforting. And in the end, you will have better bread than what you can buy at a grocery store. I hope you give this potato roll recipe a go and let me know how it went!

Happy baking!

~Alonna