Skip to main content
Main

Potato Rolls

A yeast dough made with boiled potatoes, flour, butter, eggs, and sugar, rolled and baked into rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Potato Rolls

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil four large potatoes, then mash them through a colander.

  2. Sift one quart of flour and place it in a bowl.

  3. While the potatoes are still hot, mash them into the flour and work them in with the butter until smooth.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, salt, sugar, and yeast, and knead well on a board.

  5. Let the dough rise until ready for tea (in summer at 12:00, in winter at 11:00).

Shape and bake

  1. About an hour before tea, turn the dough onto a floured board, lightly flour it, and roll it out to half an inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into round cakes and place them in a pan to rise, ensuring they do not touch.

  3. Bake the rolls for fifteen minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

796Calories
24 gProtein
18 gFat
133 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Coffeenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + coffeetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together167 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough and gives the rolls their body.
Potatoes
Add moisture and starch that keep the rolls soft and tender.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a rich texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the rolls hold together and set when baked.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and build the airy structure; rising too briefly leaves the rolls dense, while the dough should be given time in a warm spot to develop properly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, coffee):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, coffee. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More potato rolls recipes

Sweet 5 See all 93 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipesPotato BiscuitPotato Biscuit32 recipes