Finger Buns

Once a week I buy finger buns for my kids to have in their lunchboxes.  I found a couple of recipes to make my own and I found one to try.

This Week's Pin:  Finger Buns

Original Pin: http://www.frillsinthehills.com/2010/02/yes-im-giving-you-finger.html

Who's This For:  My Kids

Price:  $3.20 for 5

The website, frillsinthehills.com had a simple recipe with great photos to make these really appealing.  I followed the recipe but already noticed a few things that needing altering.

Here's my modified recipe:

475 g plain strong bread flour

75 g caster sugar

1 sachet of dried yeast

1 egg, lightly beaten

150 ml lukewarm milk

40g butter, cubed

So the technique is very simple.  Place the flour and the sugar in the mixer.  Don't forget to use a kneading attachment (shaped like a hook).

The original recipe was for 35g milk powder and 150ml lukewarm water.  I didn't have any milk powder so I used regular milk.   Bread recipes tend to be basic combinations of flour, water and yeast, but sweet breads and buns use milk instead of water.

Add the yeast to the lukewarm milk and stir.  Leave the milk a couple of minutes for the yeast to begin to activate.  This is usually left longer when you are making traditional dough however, I don't want the milk to get cold again.

Add milk to flour and egg and knead for 4 minutes.

Add the butter, spoonfuls at a time and continue to knead for a further 6 minutes.  The dough really struggled to incorporate the butter at this point.  Next time, I'd consider adding the butter with the milk as I think it would work better.

Nevertheless, I've got the dough ready.  As you can see, it's not as smooth as a bread dough but I'm hopeful the end product will be great.

I placed the dough in a greased pan and placed in my oven for an hour.  My oven has a defrost/rise dough function so I can leave it there and it'll do it's magic.

The dough didn't rise as well as it usually does.  Fresh out of the oven, they are brown, but dense and haven't risen.

OK, bin and try again.  This time, I can put my changes into action.

Place ingredients in bowl.  Add yeast to warm milk and rest.  Add butter with milk and eggs and mix.  Now that's a much better looking dough.

Out of the oven, and iced.  They look pretty good.  Taste?  Meh.  I'm looking for a bun that's super soft and fluffy.  Not like a cake but more like very light bread.  Sadly, I didn't get that.

So today's result is a 'Meh'.  Time for further research and try a different recipe next time.

Soops

“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.”
   Virgil Thomson