Thanksgiving is next week and I wanted to do a new yeast roll recipe. I love sweet potatoes, and bacon, and brown sugar, so I put all those flavors in a roll and named it Sweet Potato Rolls with Bacon Sugar Butter! I made a basic sweet potato roll dough that I’ve used for years, then I chopped up some cooked bacon with some brown sugar, then added that mixture to melted butter. Stop. Right. There…with all that bacon sugar butter stuff. At this point I was thinking that I would just make plain sweet potatoes rolls and save this bacon butter to put on everything else that I’m going to eat today. Can you imagine the eating possibilities that can be achieved with this butter? Spread it on pancakes, inside a crepe, or a piece of toast (maybe add to plain cooked oatmeal too). Toss it with roasted vegetables like Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, acorn squash, and sweet potatoes (and inside a split whole roasted sweet potato). Top chicken breasts or pork chops with it? I could put it on everything. I just thought of another thing to spread it on. A croissant. That’s the best one yet.
Back to the awesomeness at hand. Here’s the chopped up bacon and sugar mixture before adding it to the melted butter. Oh baby.
I shaped the dough into cloverleaf rolls (cause I love that style for the holidays) and topped them with the baconlicious-sugarz-buttah mixture before the second rising. All that salty-sweet goodness bakes into the roll and you can serve any leftover butter to spread on the hot rolls. Does it get any better than that? No, I don’t think it does.
This recipe can be made the day before and the dough can rise in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, let the dough come to room temperature, form into the rolls, let rise again, then bake them. The kitchen smells divine while these are baking and I can’t wait to serve these with our Thanksgiving turkey later this week. Hope you enjoy them too!
Roll topped with bacon sugar butter, ready for second rise.
After the second rising. Oh my, look at all those bacon bits. Damn, those look good!
A perfect little sweet bacon roll.
- 1/2 cup warm water, warmed to 80 degrees
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 cup sweet potato cooked and mashed
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3-3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour
- 1 teaspoon oil, to grease bowl
- 12 bacon slices, cooked crisp
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- Place bacon in small food processor and chop for a few minutes. Add brown sugar and process until finely chopped. Melt butter in small bowl and add bacon sugar mixture to it. Stir to mix well. Set aside until ready to use for rolls.
In a large bowl, combine yeast with 1/2 cup warm water and 1 tablespoon honey. Let proof for 5-10 minutes.
- Add to yeast mixture, melted butter, beaten egg, salt, and mashed sweet potato. Stir in flour, 1 cup at a time until forms a soft dough.
- Knead for a few minutes on a floured surface until dough is smooth and springy. Shape into a ball and place in oiled bowl. Turn dough ball to coat in oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
**Can also be refrigerated overnight. Put covered bowl in refrigerator, do not let rise on counter, it will rise overnight. Next day, take out of refrigerator and bring to room temperature, about 1 hour.
- Gently deflate dough and knead for a minute or two. Divide dough into 3 large sections, then divide each section into 12 small balls of equal size so there are 36 balls of dough in total.
- Grease a 12 cup muffin pan and place 3 dough balls into each cup.
Put 1-2 teaspoons of the bacon and brown sugar melted butter mixture on top of each roll. Cover with plastic wrap and place in warm area to rise until doubled in size, 45 minutes-1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Bake rolls for 15 minutes. Can place flat baking sheet or large piece of foil on rack under muffin/roll pan in case of butter overflow. Remove from pan and let cool on wire rack. Serve with leftover bacon sugar butter and enjoy!
- Rolls are best eaten immediately
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerate. Eat within 24 hours for best taste
These were sinful! Easier to make than i thought they would be and everyone loved them. The bacon butter makes it so GOOD!
Thank you Heather and happy enjoyed liked them!
Omfg! Brilliant ! Will be trying it very soon! And the format is really good! Got to learn a lot! Thank you ☺
Thanks so much Shreya! They are pretty good (probably because of the bacon!) so hope you try them soon