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random musings of a crazy cat lady

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Nice buns..

As always, recipe first, commentary at the end...

Buttery Rolls or Buns (adapted from King Arthur Flour's website)

  • 1/2 cup (120g) sourdough starter, ripe (fed) or discard
  • 3 cups (361g) All-Purpose Flour
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 1 tablespoon (14g) sugar
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 5 tablespoons (71g) melted butter
  • 2/3 cup (152g) lukewarm water
If you don't have a sourdough starter, add an additional 1/4 cup water and flour

  1. Combine all of the dough ingredients in a large bowl, and mix and knead — using your hands, a stand mixer, or a bread machine set on the dough cycle — to make a soft, smooth dough.You may need to add a bit more flour so that it's not sticky.
  2. Place the dough in a lightly greased container in a warm spot and allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until it's just about doubled in bulk.
  3. Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly greased work surface.

  4. For cinnamon rolls or other spiral dough -roll and pat the dough into a rough rectangle approximately 12" x 16". Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl. Spread melted butter onto dough and add any topping (e.g cinnamon sugar and nuts, cheese, or everything bagel seasoning, etc). Starting with a long side, roll the dough into a log.Cut the log in 1" slices, using a sharp knife, or a piece of dental floss looped between your fingers. Lightly grease two 8" or 9" round cake pans. Arrange 8 buns in each pan. If you want to do loaves, cut roll in half and put each piece in a buttered loaf pan.

    5. For buns, stretch dough into a symmetric cylinder.  Cut in half, then cut each section in half, then repeat process two more times so that you have 16 dough pieces.  Shape each piece into  a ball, and place in 2 greased round cake pans or use a 9" x 13" pan.

    6. For loaves, divide dough into 2 pieces, shape into logs and place in buttered loaf pans.  Alternately, for pull apart slices, cut dough into 16 pieces as described above, roll into logs the width of your loaf pans, and arrange in a row in 2 buttered loaf pans.

    7. For monkey bread, grease a bundt pan or two loaf pans.  Pull off 1" pieces of dough, roll in melted butter and then cinnamon sugar, and place into pan(s)

    For all variations.
    Cover the pans, and let the buns rise for 60 minutes, until they're noticeably puffy. Don't let these buns rise too long; you want them to have enough rising power left to expand nicely in the oven. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.Uncover the pans, and brush each bun with  melted butter. (you don't need to do this for the monkey bread)
    Bake for 22 to 25 minutes and 35-40 minutes for loaves or monkey bread loaves. They'll color only slightly.
    Remove the buns from the oven and cool.

    Commentary. You can tell if a recipe on the King Arthur Flour website is good by how many reviews it has and how many stars it has.  This one is both popular and highly ranked.   They're soft and tasty and are my go-to recipe for rolls for Thanksgiving, Easter dinner or sliders.  I've made these at least 5 times and usually do a double or triple recipe of the plain rolls and freeze most of them. To freeze, just separate a section of rolls and wrap well with plastic wrap.

    For more variations, check out the comments on the King Arthur Flour website.