At the beginning of the year I promised myself that I would hone my bread-making skills. I love this recipe from Cristen and have made it a few times, I even got a wheat grinder for my birthday to mill our very own wheat to make whole wheat flour for my bread! Then I got the idea that I should be making dinner rolls for seeding suppers, because farmers love fresh rolls with their meals (that is a scientific fact). I was browsing through some recipes and came across a recipe marked “Best Loved” so I decided to give it a go…even though it was called potato rolls! (Potatoes…in my bread!?).
I was leary with the mashed potatoes as an ingredient, but Cristen uses mashed potatoes for her award wining cinnamon rolls, so I thought I would finally bite the bullet and give it a try.
You will need:
- 4½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 package (2¼ tsp) active dry yeast
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup lard/shortening
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 beaten egg
- ½ cup mashed potato (no seasonings, sorry can’t use your leftovers!)
First, peel, cut up, and boil a medium-sized potato until tender. Drain water, mash or whip potato (plain) and set aside.
Combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast in your stand mixer bowl. Heat and stir that milk, water, sugar, lard and salt until just warm (120ºF – 130ºF if you want specifics) and until the lard almost melts. Then add this along with the beaten egg and mashed potato to the mixing bowl with the flour and mix on low with your whisk attachment for 30 seconds and then beat on high for 3 minutes.
Put dough hook on mixer and gradually add remaining 2½ cups flour, knead until dough is moderately stiff, smooth and elastic. Alternately, you can of course do this all by hand on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 6-8 minutes. Take dough out of bowl, spray with canola oil and place dough back in bowl, turning once to coat all sides and cover. Let rise in a warm place until double; about 1 hour.
Punch the dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide the dough in half. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes (you did just sever it in half, after all).
While your dough is recovering from being cut in half, lightly grease a large baking sheet with canola oil spray. Then you can divide each dough piece into 12 portions. Clearly, as pictured below, they don’t have to be perfect, you can take portions from the bigger pieces and add to the littler ones to make them equal.
Next, gently pull each piece into a ball by tucking the edges under to make the tops nice and smooth, as shown below. Top left is untouched piece, top right is the bottom of the bun, bottom picture is the nice, smooth top of the bun.
Next, we place the 24 prepared rolls on our baking sheet, take a photo with your two year old who is SO EXCITED mommy is making buns!
…and cook them in a 400ºF oven for 10 – 12 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Remove immediately to cool on wire racks!

- 4½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 package (2¼ tsp) active dry yeast
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup lard/shortening
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 beaten egg
- ½ cup mashed potato (no seasonings, sorry can't use your leftovers!)
- First, peel, cut up, and boil a medium-sized potato until tender. Drain water, mash or whip potato (plain) and set aside.
- Combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast in your stand mixer bowl.
- Heat and stir the milk, water, sugar, lard and salt until just warm (120ºF - 130ºF if you want specifics) and until the lard almost melts.
- Add milk mixture along with the beaten egg and mashed potato to the mixing bowl with the flour and mix on low with your whisk attachment for 30 seconds and then beat on high for 3 minutes.
- Put dough hook on mixer and gradually add remaining 2½ cups flour, knead until dough is moderately stiff, smooth and elastic. (You can of course do this all by hand on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 6-8 minutes.)
- Take dough out of bowl, spray bowl with canola oil and place dough back in bowl, turning once to coat all sides and cover. Let rise in a warm place until double; about 1 hour.
- Punch the dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide the dough in half. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes (you did just slice it in half, after all). While your dough is resting, lightly grease a large baking sheet with canola oil spray.
- Divide each dough piece into 12 portions.
- Gently pull each piece into a ball by tucking the edges under to make the tops nice and smooth.
- Next, place the 24 prepared rolls on our baking sheet and bake at 400ºF for 10-12 minutes, or until tops are golden brown.
- Remove from tray immediately to cool on wire racks.
Recipe adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook Limited Edition

I think I will be making these again and again. So much fun, and therapeutic for me, to make fresh bread. And the smell? Oh the smell!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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I am going to make the Potato atolls for Thanksgiving and I was all set to proof the Active Dry Yeast but I see that you don’t when you make them. Just wondering if I’m missing something.
These potato rolls are delicious and so easy unlike alot of yeast roll recipes. I give them a 5 star rating and will definitely make them again
thanks, Betty! These are way easier and quicker than the other rolls I make!
Making Your Own Potato Rolls
[…] ging about family life, agriculture, recipes and embracing my role as farm wife […]
[…] and divide into equal pieces. I’ve shared in detail how I divide my dough and shape them in this post, but you’ll need to divide even further as this is a big […]
Second time was a charm! The first time I made the mistake of turning on my oven surface warmer – kind of cooked the dough in the bowl. I actually let them rise of 3 hours in the bowl and 30 minutes on the cookie sheet (I was thinking this recipe had the quick rising yeast like your wheat roll recipe does – and I only had the regular) the 2nd time I made them and it worked great.
[…] 3.4.3177 I love this with rice or some mashed potatoes and a veggie and they go great with potato rolls! Short and sweet, there ya have […]
These look delicious and so do your Alberta whole wheat buns. Any luck substituting the shortening or oil for butter? I have an insane amount of butter in the house right now. Thanks!
I haven't done it myself, but a reader subbed the shortening for butter and said they were great!
[…] it. Then I was flipping though a recipe book around seeding time this spring, and came across potato rolls. I made them, everyone loved them, so I stuck with it! One question I get asked often about our […]