What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Heading to a party where there will be lots of wine, and not sure what to take? How about some simple savory cookies - biscotti and sables made for wine pairing?
Epic Failure: Potato Rolls
Who screws up potato bread? I mean, the whole idea behind adding potato (baked, mashed, boiled, flakes, flour) is to make bread basically fool-proof. It tenderizes the dough so that nearly anything you throw at it doesn't really matter. Potato bread is easy. And I was pulling the recipe from Baking with Julia, my always present stand-in when I don't have enough time to do anything too complicated.
The bread was my department this Thanksgiving. I'd made soggy bottom rolls in the past, and I liked to bake - so it was my task this year. I decided a simple potato roll would be perfect. We were arriving late the night before Thanksgiving so I wouldn't have time to make a really elaborate bread. I knew that I'd have to get up pretty early to boil the potatoes and get the dough going for a late lunch, but it was a forgiving dough (and fairly quick) and I could move pretty fast.
I don't know what I did. Maybe I didn't cook the potatoes long enough, or it was the addition of some olive oil in the pan. The dough rose, the rolls rose in the pans. But when they were in the oven they just sat there staring at me. They browned and had a nice potatoey smell, but they were like pucks. I was awfully embarrassed to serve them, but because we didn't have anything else, out to the table they went. The rest of the weekend, they were the butt of a cruel baking joke, often the tossed response to 'hey, can you throw me one of those pucks?'
Next time, I'll go back to my soggy bottom rolls, thankyouverymuch.