The following recipe for Food Storage Potato Flake Rolls is from reader K.M.W.. She says: “These are a great use for the canned potato flakes and the powdered milk that you probably already have in your long-term storage food supply closet.”
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 cup milk (warm) — fresh milk is best, but powdered milk works
- 1/2 Tbsp. active dry yeast
- 2 tsp. granulated sugar
- 3 Tbsp. butter (softened)
- 3 Tbsp. shortening (Okay to use butter-flavored shortening)
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp. table salt
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup instant potato flakes
- 1/2 cup (or more) bread flour (or substitute all-purpose flour)
- 4 Tbsp. butter (or more, for brushing on the dough)
Directions
- First, make the dough. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, add 1/4 cup water and 1 cup milk. Microwave in 20-second increments until the mixture is warm but not hot. Stick your finger in: it should feel like a nice warm bath. If it is too hot, then you will kill your yeast. The temperature should be about 105-110 degrees F.
- Add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar. Stir the mixture together and let it sit for 5 minutes while you prep the other ingredients.
- In a large bowl or stand mixer, add 3 tablespoons soft butter and 3 tablespoons shortening.*
Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and 1 large egg. - By this time your yeast mixture should be bubbling. Add the foamy yeast mixture to the bowl with the butter and shortening. Stir it together.
- Add 3/4 cup instant potato flakes and 1-1/2 cups bread flour. Continue stirring with the paddle attachment until the mixture has come together. The dough starts out a little bit chunkier than usual bread dough because of the potato flakes, but it will smooth out as you keep mixing.
- Switch to the dough hook. (if you don’t have a stand mixer, you can turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and start kneading.)
- Add 1/2 cup bread flour and mix with the dough hook until it is incorporated.
- Touch the dough with your fingers. If it is still very sticky, then add another 1/4 cup bread flour (for up to a total of 2 and 3/4 cup bread flour). When you mix it, it should clean the bowl or at least mostly clean it. Getting bread dough just right has a lot of variables, including climate and the weather, so you are going to have to use your best judgment. Use the least amount of flour possible, and remember that it will become even more homogenous after kneading.
- Knead the dough with a dough hook for about 7 minutes, or knead by hand for 10 minutes.
- Allow time for the first rise. Grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray. Gather the dough into a ball and smooth it out. Place in the bowl and turn it over so all sides are greased. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a tea towel.
- Let the dough rise in a warm place for 60-90 minutes, until doubled in size. When the dough has doubled, and when a finger poked into it does not spring back immediately, then it is ready to be shaped into roll shapes.
- Shape the rolls. Prepare a work surface with nonstick spray. This is a thick dough and we don’t want to add any more flour to it, so grease your workspace instead of flouring it. (Or use a large silicone mat that is meant for rolling dough.)
- Punch down the dough and divide it in half. Roll out half the dough into a rectangle that measure 8 inches by 12 inches.
- Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a small bowl and use a pastry brush to brush a goodly amount of butter all over the top and edges of the dough. You won’t use all the butter, you need the rest for brushing the other half of the dough, and for brushing the finished rolls.
Use a pizza cutter to slice the dough in half lengthwise, so you have two long rectangles. The idea here is to make folded “Boston-style” or “Parker House” style rolls. - Fold each rectangle in half the long way. Instead of folding it exactly in half, fold it so that there is about 1/2 inch of the underside of the dough exposed. So it should be folded over, but not quite all the way to the edge. Use your fingers to stretch the edges of the dough as necessary so that they line up.
- Use a pizza cutter to cut each long rectangle into 4 pieces. (So cut it in half, then each half in half again.) These are your shaped rolls. They should be about 2 and 1/4 inches by 3 inches.
- Prepare a 9×13 inch Pyrex pan with non-stick spray. Place the finished rolls in the pan upside down, meaning that the short end of the fold goes on bottom. The long edge of the rolls should line up with the long edge of the pan. You will place them 4 across and 4 down.
- Roll out the other half of the dough and repeat the process. Don’t forget to brush the dough with butter before cutting and folding.
- Allow time for the second rise. Cover the shaped rolls with plastic wrap or a tea towel and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes, until they have almost doubled and are looking quite puffy.
- Start preheating your oven about halfway through the second rise. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Bake the risen rolls for about 15-20 minutes. They should be completely golden on top, and the bottoms should also be golden (you can only tell this if you have a glass pan.) If the rolls have only slightly tanned, they are probably not done. The tallest rolls should be a deep golden or light brown color. A thermometer should read about 190 degrees.
- Take the rolls out of the oven and brush the tops with the remaining butter.
SERVING
Serve while still warm. If you are not serving them immediately, then do not brush them with butter. Remove the rolls from the pan after about 5-10 minutes so that the bottoms don’t become soggy. Let cool on a wire rack before transferring (immediately, once cool) to a tightly sealed ziplock or Tupperware. You can reheat them after brushing them with butter.
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Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven and slow cooker recipes, and any that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!