I hope you enjoy this issue of Between the Layers! Share it with your friends. Imagine a Perfect Thanksgiving Dinner Roll - No. 365Or a better world. This sweet potato dough is a start.
LAST WEEK I SPOKE ABOUT SOUTHERN baking and culture to the ladies of The Fortnightly of Chicago, an organization founded in 1873, two years after the disastrous Chicago Fire. That catastrophic October blaze burned through crowded wooden houses and roads in what was beginning to be an American boom town, and it would spark a renaissance. Hundreds of thousands were without housing, and the rebuild after the fire was of stone, brick, and steel. At first, the Fortnightly ladies met in each others’ homes, and in 1922 they purchased the Lathrop House, a grand Greek Revival residence, from one of their members.
Each fortnight, they hosted a speaker who would not discuss politics, religion, or business interests, just culture and how to make Chicago a better place. One of their founding members included Jane Addams, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. During World War I, Addams promoted international peace and believed human beings were capable of solving disputes without violence. Decades earlier she was a leader of the settlement movement and founded Hull House on Chicago’s industrial west side. Here educated women from the Fortnightly shared all kinds of knowledge, from basic housekeeping to arts to literature with poorer people in the neighborhood. She founded the first juvenile court in the nation. Another Fortnightly member was Bertha Palmer, society matron, art collector, and head of the board of lady managers at the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago. She helped orchestrate a cookbook called Favorite Dishes: A Columbian Autograph Souvenir, compiled by Carrie V. Shuman, in which women from every U.S. state (there were 44 states at that time, fyi) submitted recipes. The Columbian Exposition celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage, and the cookbook was intended to show off the unique qualities of regional American cooking. I was fortunate enough to spend time with two special people in Chicago, my husband’s cousin, Atlee, a member at the Fortnightly, which is how I was invited to speak. And Jolene of Time Travel Kitchen, my friend here on Substack, who has written about Bertha Palmer and has a first-edition copy of Favorite Dishes on her shelf. I was able to peruse that old book while she was making me a cup of tea in her apartment that overlooks Lake Michigan.
The Fortnightly women were the MacKenzie Scotts of our era. They imagined a better city, and they put their money to work for good. They imagined that women from all states could gather and share ideas, which would plant seeds of hope in their own hometowns. They were part of the Progressive Movement, a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution and all the woes it brought—air pollution, dirty water, filthy streets, child labor. Chaos and improvement are the give-and-take woven throughout our American story, and it’s how life works. When society moves too much in one direction, it finds a way of correcting itself. It’s called progress. What made the Progressive Movement interesting when it comes to food was that many of the recipes we follow today were born during this time. Layer cake, in particular, came out of a dedication to better baking with novel ingredients such as baking powder. These cakes were sliced and served to women meeting and imagining change.
Flying back from Chicago, fingers crossed that my flight was on time and the air traffic snafus from the government shutdown wouldn’t affect me, I arrived at the airport early enough to think about this newsletter. I got to imagining what I was going to write about and had seen an image on Instagram of these shiny dinner rolls baked in an iron skillet with a glaze of maple syrup and butter. They were finished off with sea salt. I imagined one in my mouth, and my stomach grumbled from hunger. What if those rolls were the most exquisite Thanksgiving roll dough ever? What if they were made from sweet potatoes that impart a warm soft orange color, flavor, and rich texture? What if I glaze some with butter and maple as well as butter and sorghum, the amber syrup native to the Midwest and upper South?
What if I took it one step further and turned some of the dough into next-day cinnamon (or possibly, cardamom) rolls to have ready for Thanksgiving breakfast?(That recipe is fabulous, and I’m sharing it with paid subscribers later this week!) To be honest, I had so much fun imagining what I’d do with a recipe of bread that my flight was boarding behind me. Once we landed, I headed to the store for sweet potatoes, and the recipe today made my kitchen smell soooo good. The world seems broken around us. The Fortnightly ladies must have felt that, too. In spite of the news about the Epstein files and ICE cruelty now in Charlotte, look at the recent outpouring of generosity to food banks. When SNAP payments were delayed and reduced, people helped. Hunger is nonnegotiable. That’s how I feel going into Thanksgiving 2025. I see something better for us all and am not afraid to imagine. Happy baking! - xo, Anne What do you imagine? What are you baking for Thanksgiving?
P.S. John Lennon’s song Imagine has always been a favorite. The lyrics have resonated with me through the decades of my life. Written in March 1971 as a Vietnam protest song, it depicts a world where the priority is kindness and unity. President Jimmy Carter remarked how he had heard the song played in more than 100 countries around the world. And at his funeral on Jan. 9 of this year at the Washington National Cathedral, Imagine was sung by Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks. You can watch and listen to it here while you’re baking.
THE RECIPE: The Best Sweet Potato Dinner RollsPotatoes of some sort have crept into dinner roll recipes for good reason. They’re often leftover, and they make the dough so easy to work with. Plus, they impart keeping qualities to bread, adding moisture, which keeps the bread moist days after baking. I shared a recipe for sweet potato bread in my book on Southern baking, and this recipe is a riff of that recipe, except here I call for whole milk instead of water. Milk adds richness, and a dinner roll for Thanksgiving should be RICH and fabulous! If you’re planning ahead and want to make a double batch (or the sweet rolls I will share for paid folks), it’s easy to do. Just double everything. Combine the dough in a big mixing bowl. For ease and to keep from adding too much flour that causes dry rolls, I chill the dough covered overnight. So make the dough the night before you plan to bake. I used King Arthur organic white all-purpose flour, and if I make these again, I might use bread flour. I’ll talk about flour a bit more when I share the sweet rolls recipe. Bread flour helps rolls and any braiding of dough keep its shape. Oh, the butter! I use unsalted butter in the dough and salted butter to brush on after baking. I am loving Minerva butter with sea salt. Did you know Minerva is one of the country’s oldest dairies? I can find it at my supermarket in Nashville. Or, use Kerrygold salted. If you brush the baked rolls with good butter you don’t need to put butter on the table. Makes 24 rolls Rise: Overnight, plus 1 hour Bake: About 20 minutes
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