18th Century Potato Balls

For the potluck this year I prepared Potato Balls.  I found the recipe here: Colonial Williamsburg Website.  There is even a fun video to show you how to make them!  Crazy me, decided to multiply the recipe times 5, so I bought a 10 lb bag of potatoes, Ben thought I was crazy!  And at 1am in the morning, I too decided that I was crazy, but we pushed ahead and made all of them!

Earlier in the day I had boiled all the potatoes and then peeled them.
That meant they were ready for mashing.  It is convenient to have a strong man around for this.  To make it easier we mashed them three at a time in a smaller bowl and then added them to the big pot.

 After all the mashing we set up our assembly line.  We have such a small kitchen, a way we make more counter space is to put a breadboard over the sink...

 First stir in 5 egg yolks to your mashed potatoes.

Then you roll your mashed potatoes into balls.  I enlisted my husband for this task and had him use my cookie scoop for this, making perfect sized balls.

Then you dredge your ball in flour, again husband job...

Here's where the pass off happened, he would pass me the ball and I would submerge it in the eggs.  Technically I needed 5 eggs, but we ran out, so I added the left over whites from earlier.  (Don't forget to whisk up your eggs - I thought they were prettier for the picture unwhisked...)

Now we had to coat them in breadcrumbs.  I bought the pre-made kind, but my grocery store only had Italian, extra seasoning sounds good to me!

Then we bake bake bake, and bake some more!  Ben took them out of the oven when the timer dinged, and about half an hour later when I stopped by to look at them I realized they weren't done yet.  So at 2am they went back in!

They turned out very good!  I planned on frying them in camp, but alas that was not meant to be, we couldn't get the fire hot enough in time for the pot luck.  It was ok though, because they still tasted good cold!

I wonder what new dish I shall try for our next reenactment event!  Any suggestions?