sweet bun variations

I K-N-E-A-D Bread!
and the bread experiment saga continues. This time at the spur of the moment, i decided to bake something for babe. Something that was not sweet, something to fill a guys stomach; that way he wouldn't complain that I was stuffing sweet desserts down his throat all the time. *oops* (winks at Deborah) . With that, I did a bit of research, a.k.a blog surfing and found this perfect little recipe for sweet buns off happyhomebaker's website and thought that, perhaps a little addition of savory stuff like ham and cheese and sausage would do the trick. (taking in mind the atrocious sausage croissants that Babe had purchased from carrefour after dance lessons; trust me guys, they were horrid and texture wise, were a cross between a normal bun and an extremely soggy croissant left to stand 2 days ago.)

Armed with the lesson taken from the previous bread-baking expt which was not too long ago, i was determined to squeeze a little more muscle into the kneading efforts. to produce a softer fluffier bread of course. But after kneading for 40mins with my bare hands, i had reduced the sticky dough to one that was very stretchable, BUT somehow unable to pass the window pane test. RAWR... needless to say, i shut one eye. And after a few more tosses and stretches, i left the dough to poof at room temperature for the next hour plus.

When i came back, i was thrilled to see that the dough had poofed up to at least twice the original size. YESH! so i did succeed. This was going to produce some nice bread for sure... hehe. And so it did!. the bread texture was just nice, hot from the oven. Soft and tender... and it stayed that way for a pretty long time.
so in the picture above these were the variations I managed to come up with. Using the dough in the recipe above, I got 9 portions of bread each of about 60g in weight. I decidingly rolled some with sausages (i boiled them for a while before) and some with ham and cheese and lastly with kaya.

Trust me, i was elated upon seeing the beautiful bread. they look like those from the confectionary shops! (erm.. apart from my lousy rolling skills that resulted in rather uneven flower petals. haha) I promised to leave a few to make pork floss buns the next time round. Any other suggestions people?

So without further ado, here is the recipe for those aspiring bread-winners!
Sweet Bun Recipe
Ingredients: (make around nine 60g portions)
150g bread flour
150g cake flour
5g active dry yeast
3g salt
125g milk
1 egg
60g caster sugar
50g butter
(1 egg, beaten, for glazing)
Method:

• Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
• Add in milk, egg and butter. Mix into a dough.
• Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Knead the dough until the gluten is fully developed and the dough is elastic, smooth and non-sticky. It will take about 25 mins to knead the dough by hand. Initially the dough will stick on to the work surface. Do not be tempted to add more flour or even give up kneading! After continuous kneading, the dough will no longer stick to the work surface. (i used 40mins though.. haha..)
• Place the dough in the mixing bowl and cover with a damp towel or cling wrap to seal in the moisture. Allow the dough to ferment(or proof) until double in bulk. This will take about 1 hr in our Singapore weather. To test whether the dough has been fully proofed, press a finger into the dough and withdraw quickly. It should leave a deep impression and spring back very slowly. For an insufficiently proofed dough, the impression will spring back instantly.
• Take out the dough and punch out the gas produced. Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes.
• Divide the dough into 60g portions. Shape and add fillings as desired. Arrange dough in a greased or lined pan. Rest for about another 15 minutes.
• Brush the top with whole egg mixture. Add almond flakes on the top of the buns, as desired.
• Bake for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 190 degC. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

and tada.. you've got bakery shop bread fresh out of your oven. Its not so tough after all! and whats most important was... there was something to fill my Babe's stomach before dance lessons. *yay*.. he likes it!