Sweet Potato Buns

This recipe comes from the ever faithful- The Virginia Housewife, 1838. This was THE book to have in the kitchen in the 19th Century.   In light of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I thought this would be a festive recipe to try. It sounded easy enough & tasty!

I cut & peeled one sweet potato, and boiled it until tender. Drained & mashed with a fork. I added some pumpkin pie spice & a nice portion of sugar- it says to taste  right? I added the flour, and added more flour, and it looked like a bread dough. I had proofed a package of dry yeast & added some (about a tablespoon or so).  And set it in the bowl to rise.  About 20 minutes later, it looked the same.  So I added a little more yeast. About 30 minutes later, the dough looked the same..... hmmmmm, curious.

Dough ready to rise

Oh, well I put it on the baking sheet & into a 350 degree oven. The dough was a little sticky, and not really like bread dough, and maybe that should have been my warning.  In the oven they went for about 20 minutes.  They looked done. So I served them hot with butter as suggested. And well, not so good. Yes, recipe failures are normal.  I am not sure if I should call this one a failure or not. The taste was not that bad, but the consistency of the "bun" was a little gooey.

"Buns" out of the oven

So this led me to think about the taste differences between us and our 19th Century ancestors. Today we think of a bun as something light & fluffy.  I have previously made pumpkin bread that had about the same gooey heavy texture as these buns. So, maybe they were not a failure?