So Soft! So Easy! 1930's Potato Bun Recipe - Old Cookbook Show - Glen And Friends Cooking

Welcome friends, welcome back to the kitchen. Welcome back to Sunday Morning in the Old Cookbook Show. Today we're going to do a recipe out of the mixing bowl. And this was published around 1930 by the ladies aide for the Welland County General Hospital in Welland, Ontario. And Welland is a town about an hour and a half or two hours sort of southwest of here, close to the American border, close to Niagara Falls. And it is a community cookbook, and it's got a lot of great recipes in it. And today we're going to make potato rolls. Now, I'm only going to make half of the recipe. One of the things you have to realize with a lot of these sort of pre-World War Two community cookbooks is that a lot of these families were cooking for much larger families than we are today. So let's get right into it. The first ingredient is some lard, and this is our home rendered lard. So I'm going to put that in. And it says to melt it with one cup of hot mashed potatoes. So in go the mashed potatoes. Next in is some sugar and some salt. Now, if you don't have lard, you could use vegetable shortening. You could probably use butter. You could get away with some other fats, I'm pretty sure. You could probably use bacon drippings, bacon fat, one egg. So I'm going to mix this in. Now, one of the things that drew me to this recipe is just how lackadaisical the whole thing was. It now calls for about an amount of water. And so it says about four cups of water. So since I'm only doing half, I'm going to put this in and we're supposed to mix this together. We're also supposed to dissolve a fresh yeast cake in an amount of water and then put that in at this point. Yeast in April 2020 is hard enough to come by, let alone fresh yeast cakes. None of the grocery stores around us carry fresh yeast cakes anywhere. That is just not something that you see very often. Dry yeast sort of is king at this point. So I have instant dry yeast. Just going to pour that in, stir it together, and then we're supposed to let this sit for one and a half to two hours just until it all activates and we move on to the next step. Now that bubbled up nicely. The next step in the recipe is really vague, and it's going to drive people who need to weigh their ingredients. Absolutely nuts. If about this much water wasn't bad enough, it just says then mix stiff and need. Well, it doesn't tell us how much flour to use. It doesn't even say to use flour. The word flour isn't even in the recipe. So based on the amount of water I put in, I think I'm going to use or I'm going to start out with two cups of flour and see where that gets us. And even then, I'm not even really going to measure it. I'm just going to dump some flour in. This is a recipe that you're going to have to sort of figure it out on your own and decide at what point the dough is stiff enough and ready to knead. The author of this recipe really does assume that you know what you're doing and you just need a little bit of guidance, but you're going to be fine. Don't add too much flour in at once. So I've added now roughly three cups, and I'm getting close to the point where I think I'm just going to sprinkle it in a little bit at a time based on sort of, you know, my limited bread making experience. I'm going to do this next one is a half a cup or, you know, not really measuring again. I'm just sort of doing estimates. So I'm roughly four and a half cups in of flour, and I'm going to put this out onto the countertop and start kneading. And I will be kneading in extra flour because this is a very loose dough, very sticky. Yeah, it's going to need more flour. But just like that brioche dough that we made for the Smashburgers, this is very tacky. So I think I've got it kneaded enough, and I probably should have used the stand mixer. If you have a stand mixer, I definitely would use it for this recipe. My worry with this sticking to the countertop is that I'm going to work too much flour into it. And I don't think that is necessary for this type of bread. So I'm going to put this back into a bowl and I'm going to let this rise for a couple of hours before we move on to the next step. So even with cutting this recipe in half, I have this enormous bowl of dough. I think I think if I was going to make this again, I'd probably cut it by 25 percent and only make a quarter of the recipe. So I'm going to put this out onto the countertop. Now, it's an extremely sticky dough. I think I should put down flour. I normally don't do it at this point, but I think it will stick completely to the board. Now, the recipe says to roll out and cut whatever size or shape you wish. So it kind of strikes me that it's cut like a like a biscuit dough. And I guess you could do it that way, or I guess you could probably also shape it like you would a regular bun. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. Let's get it on the bench and see what happens. I got to tell you, for me, the most fun in cooking is when I'm knee deep in something brand new that I've never done before, that I don't know what to expect and that I have to figure out on the fly. And this is certainly one of those recipes. I think that I'm just going to pull this out. I'm not going to use a rolling pin. I'm just going to flatten it out into a rectangle. I'm going to use a big cookie cutter or a biscuit cutter. I know that a lot of people use tuna cans or salmon cans, old cans, and they've cut both sides off and use that as a biscuit cutter. Those work amazing. So I'm just going to pull this out and then I'm going to cut some biscuits, I'm going to put them on these trays and let them rise again. Very sticky dough. Make sure you've got your countertop floured well. So I've got 22 of these buns that I've cut out. I've got them on these trays and they are just loosely covered with a tea towel. And we don't let them rise until they're double in bulk. And then we're going to bake them. This remaining dough, I'm going to I'm going to bring it back together because there's still a lot of dough there. I think I could probably get another dozen dozen buns, maybe. And I'm going to roll them by hand into buns. And then I'm going to bake those as well. Oh, that bun is super soft. Like I was so careful not to squish it while I cut it like that. That's, you know, nice buns, Glen. OK, I brought butter, but you know, I'm just going to taste it because that's a nice bun. Super soft dinner roll is definitely a soft. Yeah, it's super soft. Now, I think it needs more salt. It's lacking a little bit in the flavor, which is where the salt comes in. But then, you know, all the butter, you put the butter on the little salty butter on it, you know, just, you know, sets it up nicely. Let's give that a try. Yeah. Mm hmm. Success. So now we've got a lot of buns, though. This is a super soft roll. Perfect for dinners. I was a little skeptical about using a cutter to cut them out. And I did try to roll some. They didn't turn out. So doing a cutter is obviously the best way to do it, I think. And even though I use the same size cutter the whole way around, they're not always the same size, which is probably you. That's me. So I cut the recipe in half, but I would definitely cut it down even more. This is like your your your community event sized recipe of buns. I've got buns here. I've got buns over there. Still still buns in the oven. And I've got a big bowl of dough in the fridge that I haven't done yet that I'm going to leave overnight and I'm going to cook them tomorrow because I'm just I don't have enough time to do it now. I can imagine. I have an uncle who will eat six to eight of these. Yeah. Just because that, you know, they're so these these on a on a on a holiday side table would go really quickly. A little bit of gravy. That's KFC gravy trials going on over there in that in that pot. I might dip it in later. So this I think this is a great recipe. And you just have to play with the amount of flour because there's no flour in the recipe doesn't mention it at all. You just have to know when it says stir to make stiff that you're adding flour. Thanks for stopping by. Stay safe. Stay healthy. See you again soon.