Sunday Cooking — Yeast Rolls

I don’t hate Christmas.  I just hate the fact that there’s this looming deadline fraught with expectations and family baggage and expense and hooplah and Martha Stewart with her hordes of unseen minions, who do a ton of the work she pretends to do herself and… oh. Wait.

Well, even if Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday, there is help.  No, not eggnog, (though that helps too). One word: freezer.

A freezer (thank you Clarence Birdseye) can be a cook’s nearly-best friend at a time like this. Instead of trying to get all the cooking done in the frenzied day or two between when you get off work for the holidays and when the holidays are here, a freezer lets you stretch it out over several days or even weeks.

Making something ahead and freezing works particularly well for things like yeast rolls, which you can thaw in the car en route to grandma’s (or in the pantry or on top of the dryer at home as long as guests don’t dump their coats on them). Re-warm them in the oven just before the meal for the ‘fresh-baked goodness’ that one of the preservative-enriched rolls-in-a-can advertises.  Yours are better for you an your loved ones, and taste better, too. And yeast rolls offer, in addition to being inexpensive, preservative-free and delicious they can be a kind of mini-therapy.  Working out your stress in the kneading instead of the liquor cabinet lets you slow down, take deep, soothing breaths, and actually enjoy the holiday experience. Promise.

There’s a good recipe for Brioche Rolls in the latest issue of Bon Appetit. Stale Brioche makes great bread pudding and French toast. Spy Art Director, Jean Sanders’s recipe for rum-infused Weekend French Toast would make a superb holiday breakfast with leftover brioche. Jean’s recipe, chosen as a finalist by NY Times food writer and author, Amanda Hesser,  appears as a video on Hesser’s food blog, Food52.com.  (https://www.food52.com/recipes/4622_weekend_french_toast). Jean found the blog at the New York Times site and each week or two enters the two of us – usually her illustrations and my recipes – in hopes we will one day become rich and famous.

Meanwhile, back at our day jobs, another really great yeast roll option is Mrs. Eaton’s Potato Rolls. They’re delicious and versatile – and are also found on Food52 (https://www.food52.com/recipes/8326_mrs_eatons_potato_rolls) with Jean’s fabulous illustration.

These potato rolls have the advantage of using leftover mashed potatoes, so all you need to do is add a few spuds to the pot when you’re making supper one night that week, and save out a cup of mash plus a cup of the water in which you boiled the spuds. Mix the two into a slurry and stick it in the frig for several days (no more than four) until you make the rolls. Pull the slurry out to warm up to room temperature — between 70 and 85 degrees –before adding the sugar and yeast. If it’s too cold, the yeast won’t work;too hot and it kills the yeast. If you warm it in the microwave, be sure to stir it well so all parts are the same temperature.

Mrs. Eaton’s Potato Rolls

MAKES 3 DOZEN

1 cup white mashed potatoes – Yellow Finn or Red Bliss are best

1 cup warm water, from potato-boiling, if possible

1/4 cup sugar

1 yeast cake or 1 tablespoon yeast

2 well-beaten eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening (unsalted butter is nice)

6 cups flour

Mix together the potatoes, water, sugar and yeast. Set aside, covered, for 20 minutes. Add to that mixture the eggs, salt and shortening. Blend in 6 cups of flour and knead well. Let double in bulk in a warm place with a towel overtop the bowl. Then make knobs – the dough will be sticky – and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen. Divine with smoked salmon, Smithfield ham for egg salad sandwiches, hot pepper jelly or opened, spread with blue cheese and run under the broiler until the cheese is bubbly.

Make the rolls ahead, let them cool completely, wrap well – close-wrapped plastic wrap followed by a plastic freezer bag you’ve sucked the air out of, put them in the freezer and give thanks.

These rolls are also nice for a savory bread pudding – sausage, cheese, herbs, sautéed shallots and savory custard  – an easy, relatively inexpensive brunch casserole that feeds a troop. Additionally, like other bread puddings, it can be assembled the night before, refrigerated while the custard soaks completely into the bread/rolls, then baked the next morning.