Monday, September 12, 2011

Soft Buns



Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!
Hope you all had plenty of fun lighting lanterns and eating mooncakes :D

I was originally going to write about some snowskin mooncakes I made a two days ago........

Unfortunately, they all got gobbled up before I had the chance to take photos. (they were that good) Don't worry- I'll be making them again very soon!!


Instead, I'll tell you about something not as sweet, but equally as good!

It's been a while since I've baked bread, so when I saw these extremely soft buns on Shirley's blog, I couldn't wait to make them. I'd been wondering why the buns I bought from Asian bakeries were always soft wrinkly whilst the ones which came out of my oven, though soft, always remained unwrinkly- call me strange, but I think wrinkly buns are beautiful! Better still, the recipe was was simple, consisting only of a quick roux to be made the night before- perfect for someone in a lazy mood :)

I wanted to keep my buns simple, so I just twisted them into a knot, as I'd seen in one of my cookbooks (though mine didn't turn out quite as pretty). The buns turned out very soft, as I'd expected and were especially good straight out of the oven.

I think I'm starting to get hooked on bread baking again!!




Soft Buns
Recipe from Køkken69

Water Roux
50g Bread Flour
75g Boiling water

Bread Dough
6gm Active Dry East
160gm Bread Flour
40gm Plain Flour
50gm Sugar
2gm Salt
50gm Water
1 Egg
40gm Butter

Method
1. Mix water roux ingredients together in a bowl. Cover bowl with cling wrap and store in fridge for 12 hours.
2. In a mixer fitted with a bread hook, add flour, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Start mixing at slow speed for 2 mins. Add salt and continue to knead until dough lifts from the wall of the mixing bowl.
3. Add (1) and continue to knead for 3 mins.
4. Add butter and increasing kneading speed to speed 4.
5. Continue kneading for 15 mins on speed 4 until dough is no longer sticky and does not break when pulled to perform window test.
6. Place dough in a slightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling wrap and leave to proof in a warm area for 45mins.
7. With lightly floured hands and table top, knead (6) to form a smooth round ball. Divide dough into 12 balls - about 40g each.
8. Roll each small ball into a round ball and leave to proof for 10mins. Shape into a knot (or whatever you want to shape it into!) then leave to proof for 1 hour.
9. Brush with egg white and decorate.
10. Bake at 185C for 8-10mins until brown. Leave to cool.

* I made mine in my bread machine, but I'll point out that if you do, you should put the roux before the dough forms- bread machines do a terrible job of incorporating wet things into dry doughs. It took mine almost the whole of the kneading cycle to knead the roux in!

24 comments:

  1. These look so perfect, not a single lump or bump! I think your look better than wrinkly ones, but maybe that's because I've never had a wrinkly bun? (that could sound so bad if you misspelled that sentence, haha)

    Since cutting gluten I have been baking bread like a mad woman. Store bought GF bread is like dish sponges, but homemade tastes like bread :P

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  2. Perfect! i am intrigued by your mooncakes...

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  3. Yeast. You are not my friend but just wait a while - I AM going to master you. To DOMINATE you!

    Alright, after I expressed my struggle with yeast, I can tell you how pretty these look! They remind me of little caterpillars - but in a GOOD way! I mean, honestly. ;) I can really see myself eating them all up with some butter and marmelade before they even cool down!

    Cheers,
    Tobias

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  4. beautiful! i can imagine how soft the bun is on the inside! i will try making bread using this roux method next time (have only used tangzhong before)...yea i sorta gotten out of my bread phase for a while too...might be a good time to get back into it :) hp u had a good mooncake fest! i didnt eat any mooncakes (not a huge fan) but i did look at the moon last nite :P

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  5. Happy Moon Festival! ive had an overdose on mooncakes. >-<

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  6. Yum! These buns look amazing! Ha what's funny is that I just made some too! Happy Moon Festival! (I just had some mooncakes!)

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  7. They're perfect :) I would totally buy these!! Well done they look awesome. Bread is my current food nemesis but hopefully after my course next week, I will have won lol

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  8. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you too Von. You made your mooncakes that is incredible, but your buns look fantastic too :)

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  9. Happy Moon Festival! I missed it this year, but I bought some mooncakes to get into the festive mood :) Those buns look great!

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  10. These look so lovely! All they really need is a dab of butter!

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  11. Von, your soft buns sure look very pillow texture :-) Love the color and the shape of this buns. Beautiful pictures!
    Hope you are having a great week :-)

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  12. Shame about the mooncakes but woo for this bun recipe! Looks and sounds just perfect :)

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  13. Can someone please help me convert the measurements to cups and tablespoon?

    thank you

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  14. Von- These are beautiful! Thanks for the mention :)

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  15. i love the simple twist, von, and i can only imagine how fluffy and fantastic the innards must be. your buns look great, and i mean that in the most innocent way possible. :)

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  16. They look perfect!! I have to try this recipe!!!

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  17. Bread making can be addicting. Your buns looks awesome!

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  18. So easy to make and they turned out just like the store bought ones! The orange/yellow colour looks fantastic

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  19. beautiful rolls! all i can say that they look perfect!!

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  20. Can't wait to see your mooncakes!

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  21. The buns look perfect! I never have luck with bread making :(

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  22. happy belated moon fest. to you..

    awww they are so cute and so shop like!!!

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  23. @minimai Sorry for taking so long to reply to your comment but here are the conversions (I used online converters for these):

    2/5 cups Bread Flour
    1/3 cup Boiling water

    Bread Dough
    2 tsp Active Dry East
    1 1/3cups Bread Flour
    1/3 cup Plain Flour
    2/5 cups Sugar
    1 tsp Salt
    1/5 cups Water
    1 Egg
    4 tablespoons Butter

    Hope this helps!

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  24. Love the look of these little buns - they look so light! There's nothing more fun, or relaxing, than bread making - glad you've got the bug back :-)

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