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Potato Rolls
4 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon sugar 7 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 2 medium-sized cold, boiled potatoes water or milk or equal quantities of each Sift thoroughly together flour, salt, sugar and baking powder; rub in potatoes or add after putting through ricer; add sufficient liquid to mix smoothly into a stiff batter or soft dough. This will require about one and one-half cups. Divide into small pieces; knead each and shape into small rolls; place on greased pan and brush with melted shortening and allow to stand in warm place 15 to 20 minutes. Bake in hot oven and when nearly done, brush again with melted shortening.
A quick roll leavened entirely with baking powder, no yeast anywhere in it. The potato is there for moisture and tenderness, not flavour, and the dough behaves more like a rich biscuit dough than a bread dough.
- Don't let it standRoyal was a cream-of-tartar powder that begins working the moment liquid hits it, so the 15 to 20 minute rest in a warm place will cost some lift. A modern double-acting powder holds a second reserve for the oven and tolerates the wait better; if in doubt, shape and bake at once.
- Hot ovenPeriod usage for a "hot" oven generally means somewhere around 400 to 450F. Small rolls take roughly 15 to 18 minutes; brush with melted shortening or butter in the last few minutes as directed.
- Baking powder quantitySeven teaspoons to 4 cups of flour is generous even by the standards of a company booklet selling baking powder. Modern practice is 1 to 1.5 teaspoons per cup of flour, so 4 to 6 teaspoons will rise adequately and taste less sharp.
- The potatoesTwo medium boiled potatoes is roughly 8 to 10 oz, or about a cup riced. They must be cold and dry — freshly boiled, steaming potato will slacken the dough badly. Rice or mash them smooth; lumps show as dense spots.
- LiquidThe cup and a half is a starting point only, since potatoes vary widely in how much water they hold. Add it in stages and stop at a soft dough that just holds a shape when patted; the batter alternative gives drop rolls rather than shaped ones.
- Knead lightly"Knead each" means a few folds to bring the piece together, as with biscuits. Working it like a yeast dough develops gluten and toughens the crumb.
- ShorteningIn 1920s American usage this is lard or vegetable shortening. Melted butter works for brushing and browns better, though it burns faster at 450F.
- YieldAbout 14 to 16 rolls of dinner-roll size. Best within a few hours of baking; chemically leavened rolls stale quickly.
The New Royal Cook Book was promotional literature from the Royal Baking Powder Company, and the recipes read as an argument that anything made with yeast could be made faster with baking powder — hence a potato roll with no rising time and a conspicuous seven teaspoons of the sponsor's product. Potato in bread is much older than the chemical leaven: cooks had long used mashed potato or the water potatoes were boiled in to feed a yeast sponge and keep the crumb soft and moist for longer, a habit that made sense when potatoes were cheap and flour was not. Here the potato survives for its texture alone, the yeast having been replaced. Booklets like this circulated widely and free of charge through the 1910s and 1920s, carrying the suggestion that a batch of rolls could be a thirty-minute job rather than an all-morning one.