We were putting together a surprise afternoon snack where we wanted everything to be absolutely homemade, so we couldn’t even allow ourselves to buy the bread. One of the things we wanted to make was little savory sandwiches and, once again, we turned to the La Receta de la Felicidad blog to follow their steps and make some great milk bread buns. Honestly, we thought it would be pretty complicated, but how wrong we were…

Pics and Cakes

What do we need?

(16 buns)

  •   500 g (about 4 cups) bread flour

  •   25 g (about 1 oz) fresh yeast (or two sachets of dry baker's yeast)

  •   250 ml (1 cup) milk

  •   70 g (about 5 tbsp) butter, softened (i.e. nice and soft)

  •   40 g (about 3 tbsp) sugar

  •   1 egg

  •   2 tablespoons of honey

  •   A pinch of salt

How do we do it?

  • Mix the flour and yeast in a large bowl and add the egg and milk.

  • Add the sugar, honey and salt, and mix well using a spoon or fork.

  • Add the butter, and knead for 10-15 minutes, until you get a soft, pliable, slightly shiny dough.

  • Form the dough into a ball by turning it and folding it inwards, and let it rest in a lightly floured bowl, covered with a cloth, for about two hours so it doubles in volume.

  • Take the dough out of the bowl and lightly press it down with your fingers to ‘deflate’ it.

  • Cut the dough into 16 portions, and shape them into buns.

  • To do this, we have two methods. The first one is to take each piece of dough and roll it on itself, as if the bun were swallowing itself up. (Since my explanation leaves a lot to be desired, you can watch it in this video). The second method is to roll out each piece of dough into a rectangular shape. On one of the ends, make three or four cuts with a sharp knife to create some fringes. Finally, roll up the dough starting from the side opposite the fringes, so that when you finish, the fringes end up on the outside and give that distinctive look of milk buns.

  • Brush the buns with a little milk, let them rest on a baking tray lined with parchment paper for about 20 minutes, and meanwhile preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F).

  • Bake the buns for 10-12 minutes, and let them cool to room temperature on a wire rack.

Tips:

  • If you let the dough rest longer, nothing happens except that it might grow out of control (like what happened to us, when we discovered a mutant dough trying to escape from the bowl).
  • To shape the buns, we used the two methods we found at La Receta de la Felicidad, since we made two batches of dough and one of them (despite following the same steps) came out stickier, so the first method was easier for us.
  • The flavor in my opinion isn’t exactly the same as store-bought milk buns, but they are delicious, very fluffy, and you can fill them with both sweet and savory fillings.

Pics and Cakes

*[English version] MILK BREAD BUNS ** *Ingredients:

- 500 g strong bread flour - 25 g fresh yeast (or two sachets dry yeast) - 250 ml milk - 70 g butter, room temperature - 40 g sugar - 1 egg - 2 tbs honey - A pinch of salt

  • Combine flour and yeast in a bowl. Add the egg, honey, milk, sugar and salt and mix well.

  • Add butter and use a large spoon or fork to mix everything together.

  • Take the dough out of the bowl and knead. You will feel the dough become elastic after kneading for about 5 minutes. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes more or until the dough is soft, pliable, smooth and slightly shiny-

  • Put the dough into a lightly floured bowl and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise in a warm place until its size doubles (aprox. two hours)

  • Take the dough out of the bowl, deflate it by touching lightly.

  • Cut the dough into 16 pieces, and roll each of them into an oval shape. Or alternatively, roll out each piece of dough forming a rectangle 1 cm thick. Cut 1/3 the length of the rectangle into 4/5 strips of equal width and roll up the dough similar to a Swiss roll.

  • Preheat oven to 180ºC and let the milk buns rest for 20 minutes.

  • Glaze the buns with some milk, and bake them for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool on a wire rack

  • Tips:**- Nothing wrong if you leave the dough more time covered with a cloth, it will just rise even more! * - We made the bun shape following the two different methods. For sticky doughs is easier the first method (just forming the oval shape). *- You won’t achieve exactly the same flavor than the milk buns of the supermarket but it is absolutely delicious, spongy and can be filled with sweet or savory ingredients. *

Comments

marmota zampona (2012-09-12 08:16:25):

we’ll make them. thanks