I think I need bigger bowls.

Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls I howsweeteats.com

Actually, wait… I also think I need a bigger brain. Listen.

On Tuesday night before I was going to bed, at uh… midnight, I took out my contacts to sterilize them, washed my face, brushed my teeth, slathered moisturizer on my skin and then… put my contacts back in my eyes. You know… for bed?

This may not seem like a huge deal, but if you have to sterilize your contacts like I do, then you know that they absolutely cannot touch your eyes for at least 6 hours once they hit that solution.

Ouch ouch ouch.

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As I was screaming in pain with no one to help me since my husband was out of town, I managed to claw my eyelids open and practically scrape the contacts from my eyes.

I don’t know what had gotten into me, but it was like when you wake up feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with boatloads of energy, take a shower, eat breakfast, get dressed, put on makeup, then get in the car to go to work and notice that the clock says 1:54.

AM.

We’ve all be there, right?

WHY DID I STUFF MY CONTACTS IN MY EYES AT 12:07 AM?! It wasn’t like I had just woken from a deep sleep. Or a deep bottle of wine. Or rum! I know what you think of me.

Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls I howsweeteats.com

Then I couldn’t fall asleep because my eyes were on fire. The only thing that kept me alive (drama!) was blinking 436 times per minute. And for the last two days, my eyes have appeared as though I’ve been ingesting large amounts of questionable substances… like all day long.

By 3AM that night, I was starrrrving. I was past the point of exhaustion and still couldn’t comfortably keeps my eyes opened or closed, so I hoofed it downstairs and sank my teeth into one of these fluffy rolls. I had made them on Saturday in between my pajama wearing, wine drinking, and related laying around, and they still tasted fresh in the middle of the night three days later. They soothed me enough to eventually pass out and forget about the flames under my lids until about 6AM, when I simply wanted to shove my head into a barrel of ice.

Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls I howsweeteats.com

Even though I crammed way too much dough into a little bowl, seeing dough rise still makes me giddy. Especially when it spills over the dish and makes the kitchen smell all yeasty. In a, uh… good way.

I’m not even a bread person (much more of a consume-an-entire-cheesecake person) and I couldn’t stop with these rolls. We ate them with chicken chili and spread them with butter and drizzled them with honey and shoved them in our face and made them our… you know. They were like sweet potato pillows. I want to bounce up and down on them.

Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls I howsweeteats.com

Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls

5 from 4 votes
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Ingredients

  • 1 large sweet potato, once peeled, mine was 12 ounces
  • 2 packages of active dry yeast
  • 4 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1/2 cup warm water, about 110 degrees
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
  • 4 teaspoons sea salt
  • 6 cups of all-purpose flour, plus more for workspace
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Instructions 

  • Peel sweet potato (or potatoes – you just want about 12 ounces), chop into chunks and place in a pot with cold water. Bring to a boil and and cook until potatoes are fork tender, about 20-25 minutes. Drain potatoes, then place in a bowl and mash.
  • In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine water, yeast, 2 tablespoons honey and olive oil. Mix with a spoon and let sit until foamy, about 15 minutes.
  • Once foamy, add potatoes, remaining honey, 4 tablespoons melted butter, buttermilk and salt. Gradually add flour with the mixer on low until a sticky dough forms, then knead with the dough hook for about 2-3 minutes. Brush a large bowl with melted butter, then place the dough in the bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours.
  • Using a bit of flour, knead dough until silky then divide in half. Roll into a long rope, then cut off pieces of dough (about 2 ounces each) and roll into a bowl. Place them into a greased 9×13 baking dish – you should be able to fit about 15 in there (using 2 pans). If desired, you can freeze dough at this point for up to 2 months. If baking immediately, cover the baking dish and let sit in a warm place to rise for about 30-45 more minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush rolls with beaten egg, then bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden brown. (If you want to bake both pans at once, set one on the lower rack and one on the upper rack in the oven, then switch half way through baking.) Let cool for a few minutes, then serve warm with butter and honey.

Notes

[adapted from martha stewart]
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Sweet Potato and Honey Dinner Rolls I howsweeteats.com

You can eat all that butter in that bowl there. Because I said so.