Mom's Favorite Potato Rolls

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water, add a pinch of sugar and a tablespoon or so of flour and let it proof until foamy.

In a large bowl, stir together the rest of the warm water, sugar, salt, margarine, eggs, potatoes and 4 cup of the flour. Stir in the proofed yeast mixture.

Beat dough until smooth. Stir in enough of the rest of the flour to make the dough easy to handle (dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl). Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and velvety. This will take 7 to 10 minutes. Wash your mixing bowl in hot water, dry and then grease generously with margarine.

To use a heavy duty mixer: Proof the yeast as above. While yeast is proofing, measure 7 cups of the flour, sugar and salt into mixing bowl. Give a little stir with a spoon or spatula (just so one ingredient doesn't get clumped together when you start adding the liquids).

In a medium saucepan melt the margarine, then stir in the mashed potatoes, balance of the water and the eggs (they don't have to be beaten first - you're just getting the wet ingredients in one container).

Put your bowl on the stand, attach the dough hook and raise the bowl. Turn the mixer on to the lowest setting and slowly pour the wet mixture into the bowl. Once the flour mixture is moistened turn the speed up to 2 and allow the mixer to knead the dough for about three minutes (it may start to climb the dough hook) dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl, if it doesn't add the last 1/2 cup of flour a couple tablespoons at a time.

Grease the top of the dough with margarine and then place it in a large greased bowl, leaving the margarine covered side of the dough up.

Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight. It will rise quite a bit. (Dough can be kept up to 5 days, refrigerated.)

When ready to bake, take out of refrigerator. Punch down and let warm for several hours, then shape.

For plain rolls, tear or cut pieces of dough off and form into balls about 1 - 1 1/2-inch across. (Through the years I have found that it's easiest to cut the dough up, then round into balls. It's easier to control the number of rolls that way - I usually divide first by the number of pans, then each piece by the number of rolls per pan, a 9 x 13-inch pan will hold 20 rolls.)

Place balls in baking pan which has been sprayed with cooking spray. This recipe will fill two 9 x 13-inch pans. Let rise until doubled (about 1/2 - 1 hour depending on how much the dough has warmed up before shaping).

Just before baking brush tops with a wash made of 1 egg and 1 Tbsp. water, whisked together until frothy. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 - 25 minutes, until deep golden brown.

cook's notes

You can shape rolls as soon as you take them out of the refrigerator, but it's much harder to work with the cold dough, the rising time will then be about 1 - 1 1/2 hours.