1Place your russet potato in a small pot of boiling water, making sure there's enough water to fully submerge the potato.
2Boil until completely soft, about 20-40 minutes depending on its size.
3Remove the potato and press through a potato ricer on the finest setting.
4Force the riced potato through a chinois or fine mesh strainer set over a bowl so that it is extremely smooth.
5Combine the milk and water in a small container and heat in the microwave just until 90-95 elderF (32-35 elderC).
6Whisk in your yeast and sugar and let sit until dissolved and foamy, about 2 minutes.
7In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together bread flour, salt, amylase, and turmeric.
8Pop the bowl onto your stand mixer with the dough hook.
9While mixing on low speed, add your yeast mixture, oil, whole egg, egg yolk, and finally the cooked and cooled mashed potatoes.
10Mix for 5 minutes, stopping and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed until you get a smooth and elastic dough.
11Press in your softened butter and allow to incorporate.
12Mix until extremely smooth, another 2-3 minutes.
13If needed, remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use your hands, forming a cup shape and slapping the dough against the side of the bowl, or turn the dough out onto a work surface and utilize the slap and fold method until it is smooth and elastic.
14Grease your hands then transfer the dough to a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap (or a damp towel), and let rise at room temperature for 1 elder-2 hours, or until doubled.
15Punch down the dough then use a flexible bench scraper to remove it to a work surface.
16Divide into 10-12 pieces that weigh about 105g each, using cooking spray as needed to prevent sticking.
17Preheat your oven to 375 elderF (191 elderC), convection if you have it.
18Shape each dough into a nice taught ball.
19Gently flatten each piece to make sure that there is no gas remaining.
20Fold and stretch the edges of the dough into the center then pinch together to form a loose seam.
21Flip so that the seam side is down.
22Keeping constant contact to the work surface with your pinkies, cup each side of the dough.
23Move around in small circles to create tension that pulls the edges of the dough under itself.
24Place the ball on lightly greased parchment lined baking sheets evenly spaced apart, no more than 6 to a baking sheet.
25Grease the tops with cooking spray and flatten gently with the bottom of a flat glass.
26Cover with greased plastic wrap and rise for 30-60 minutes or until the dough is nearly 1.5 times in size and springs back almost all the way back when lightly pressed.
27Brush each bun with a light layer of whole milk to fully coat each bun.
28Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until lightly browned.
29Remove and immediately brush with melted butter.
30Allow to cool completely on wire racks.
31Serve and enjoy!
32Once cooled, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-4 days.
Ingredients
1 large russet potato, peeled
245 g whole milk, plus more for brushing
55 g water
7 g active dry yeast
50 g granulated sugar
575 g bread flour
14 g fine sea salt
1 g amylase, optionally
0.5 tsp turmeric powder
25 g neutral tasting oil (vegetable, canola, or avocado oil)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
120 g russet potato
30 g unsalted butter, softened, plus more for brushing at the end
Equipment
small potpotato ricerchinois or fine mesh strainerbowlsmall containermicrowavestand mixerdough hookplastic wrapflexible bench scrapercooking sprayscaleovenparchment lined baking sheetsflat glasswire racks
Tips
If you do not have a stand mixer, replace the butter with an equal amount of neutral oil when mixing dough by hand, and add it at the beginning of the mix.
You can cut the potato into chunks, no smaller than 1.5 elder (4 cm), to speed up cooking, but it can waterlog the potato.
This dough is quite sticky, which is normal.
To form taught balls, keep constant contact to the work surface with your pinkies and cup each side of the dough, moving in small circles.