Sweet Potato Rolls : Free and Easy Bake-Along #9

For our Bake-Along No. 9, together with my baking buddies, Lena and Zoe, we made this Sweet Potato Rolls, recipe taken from King Arthur Flour's website. This was supposed to be made into 6 large Sandwich Rolls, but I baked them as a bun-pan, using a 9" square baking pan and divide the dough into nine small buns. These rolls has a beautiful colour from the sweet potatoes. It turned out soft but not as fluffy soft as I expect it to be, but it tasted very good. And it does not stay soft for long, it has turn kind of 'stale' the very next morning. 

I use the bread machine to knead the dough, and used up the reserved 1/2 cup flour as the dough was very sticky, sticking on my fingers. Maybe I should not have added all of the 1/2 cup in, but the recipe says that the dough should be soft and not sticky. Even with the addition of the reserved flour, the dough is still slightly sticky, but I've decided not to add anymore flour. At first, I was tempted to use Bread Flour but decided at the last minute, to use all-purpose flour as stated in the recipe. I'm not sure whether by using Bread Flour  would make any difference to the texture of the bun for this recipe. Overall rating, I'm not very pleased with how my buns turned out. 

Let's visit Lena of Her Frozen Wings and Zoe of Bake For Happy Kids, they have done a great job with their Sweet Potato Rolls. I'm glad that they have enjoyed these rolls.  For our next Bake-Along, we are going with a theme, "Going Bananas", which we will post on 22/09. Feel free to join in, just bake anything with banana as one of the ingredients and post it on that date, linking back to our posts. And remember to leave a comment that you have join in the fun, so that we can visit you right back.

Sweet Potato Sandwich Rolls

(adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Dough

1/2 cup (4 ounces) water

2 teaspoons instant yeast

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) soft butter

1 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

3/4 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato (1 medium)

1/4 cup (1 ounces) Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk

1 cup (4 ounces) King Arthur whole wheat flour, Traditional or White Whole Wheat

2-1/4 to 2-1/2 cups (9-5/8 to 10-5/8 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Topping

1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

1/4 cup (1-1/4 ounces) sesame seeds (optional)

To make the dough : 

Place all of the ingredients (holding back 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour) into the bowl of your mixer or the bucket of your bread machine, set up for the dough cycle. Mix until you've form a soft, but not sticky dough. Add more flour from your reserved amount if needed to achieve the correct consistency. Knead the dough for 6 minutes, then place it in a greased bowl, cover and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour; it will almost double in size and look puffy.

To shape and finish the rolls :

After the first rise, deflate the dough and divide it into 6 pieces. You can roll each piece into a ball, then flatten it to make it 3/4-inch thick (this give it a large enough diameter to fit your sandwich on after baking). Or you can roll each piece into a 12 to 14-inch rope, and form into a Kaiser roll shape.

Place the rolls either in a hamburger bun pan or on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rise for 25 to 30 minutes, until almost doubled. Brush the tops of the rolls with the beaten egg, and sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using.

Bake in a preheated 375F oven for 17 to 19 minutes, until the tops are a rich golden brown colour, and the centers read above 190F when measured with an instant-read thermometer. Remove the rolls from the oven and cool on a rack for 5 minutes, before removing from the pan and returning to the rack to cool completely. 

Yield : 6 large sandwich rolls