Sweet Potato Crescent Rolls
I make these at every holiday, and they are frequently requested by my friends. These are adapted from a recipe, but I have chosen not to use shortening in favor of good, old fashioned butter! The result is just as nice, if not nicer!
I make these at every holiday, and they are frequently requested by my friends. These are adapted from a recipe, but I have chosen not to use shortening in favor of good, old fashioned butter! The result is just as nice, if not nicer!
- Carbohydrate 39.10417 g
- Cholesterol 19.4438888888889 mg
- Fat 5.79569777777778 g
- Fiber 1.80333335518837 g
- Protein 5.52846666666667 g
- Saturated Fat 3.37415933333333 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (66g)
- Sodium 40.9731111111111 mg
- Sugar 37.3008366448116 g
- Trans Fat 0.548143777777777 g
- Calories 232 calories
Step-by-step
- In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.
- Let stand for 5 minutes.
- Beat in the sweet potatoes, sugar, egg and salt.
- Combine cold butter with 3 cups of flour, using a pastry cutter or two knives, until the butter chunks resemble coarse crumbs.
- Combine with wet ingredients.
- Add enough of the remaining flour to form a stiff dough.
- Turn onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
- Place it in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top.
- Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Rising time may be less if you use instant yeast, which I always do.
- Punch dough down; divide into thirds.
- Roll each portion into a 12 inch circle; cut each into 12 wedges.
- Brush with the melted butter.
- Roll up from the wide end of the triangle and place, pointed end down, 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.
- Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove from pans to wire racks.
- Serve warm.
Incorporating mashed sweet potatoes into an enriched yeast dough changes the hydration requirements significantly, demanding careful attention during the flour incorporation stage. Because canned sweet potatoes introduce variable moisture depending on how thoroughly they were drained, measuring the flour by weight or adding the final cup incrementally prevents a heavy, dense crumb. When cutting the cold butter into the initial three cups of flour, target pea-sized pieces rather than a uniform meal to ensure steam pockets form during baking, creating internal flakiness analogous to laminated pastry.
Kneading must continue for a full six to eight minutes until the gluten network develops enough tensile strength to trap expanding carbon dioxide without tearing. Maintaining an ambient proofing temperature between 75 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit ensures the yeast metabolizes sugars efficiently during the initial one-hour rise and the subsequent forty-minute second rise. Rolling each dough division into a precise twelve-inch circle guarantees that the thirty-six resulting wedges bake evenly at 375 degrees Fahrenheit within the fifteen-minute threshold.
Omitting vegetable shortening in favor of pure butter yields superior flavor compounds, though butter contains water that evaporates during baking, slightly altering the structural tenderness of the roll. Bakers substituting instant yeast for active dry yeast can reduce the initial resting period safely, as instant strains bypass the rehydration step entirely.
