- Makes 8 soft bread buns (approx.10cm diameter) - Ready in 3.5 hours (including proving time) -
Gather together…
240ml warm water.
30g white sugar (caster or granulated).
7g fast-action yeast.
375g strong white bread flour.
7g salt (fine 'table' salt).
30g butter (room temperature and cut up into small cubes).
Serve with...
Linda McCartney's Meat Free Mozzarella Burgers - a very similar texture to meaty burgers and totally delicious.
Get cooking…
1. Put the 240ml warm water in a medium jug and add the 30g sugar and the 7g fast-action yeast.
2. Cover with a damp (well wrung-out) tea towel and leave for 10 minutes to 'activate' the yeast - you will see the mixture turn frothy.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate (medium-large) bowl - preferably the bowl that attaches to your bread-dough-hook-holding- food-mixer machine (if like me you are lucky enough to have one) put the 375g strong white bread flour and the 7g of fine table salt, then stir (so there are no pockets of salt to upset the yeast when it is added shortly).
4. Add the 30g of chopped room-temperature butter to the dry ingredients bowl and stir for about 20 seconds, with a spoon, to coat the butter in flour, then set the bowl aside.
5. Once the yeast is bubbly, pour the watery yeast mixture into the dry-ingredients bowl and stir for about half a minute with a spoon, so there are no floury patches left.
6. Now knead the dough for 10 minutes (preferably with a dough hook machine - if not, good luck!).
7. Meanwhile decide where you will be putting the dough to rise, if it is a cold day warm the oven slightly - set it to 100 C and allow it to warm for 1 minute, then turn the heat OFF but leave the oven light ON as the lightbulb will keep the slightly warmed oven at the perfect temperature for dough.
8. Cover the bowl (containing the kneaded dough) with the damp tea towel and put it somewhere warm - such as the warm-but-off oven as described above, to rise for to 2 HOURS.
9. After the 2 hours of rising, remove dust the sticky dough with a small handful of flour (dust the worksurface with flour too) and divide it into 8 even pieces (use digital weighing scales to help you - each piece will be about 80g in weight).
10. Shape each lump into a loose-but-smooth ball by rolling each lump gently in your palms - keep one palm flat and 'cage' the fingers of your other hand over the dough ball and swirl it into a ball, so you don't squash the air out of it.
11. Line two deep-sided oven trays with greaseproof or a reusable liner (use deep-sided trays so that when you cover the trays the dough doesn't rise up enough to touch whatever is covering the trays). I use a large and deep tray like this for 6 of the dough balls (and I put the other two in an ancient square, deep-sided tin tray).
12. Divide the 8 dough balls between the two deep sided oven trays (well spaced out) and cover each with a damp tea towel - I always lay a wire cooling rack over each tray, below the tea towel, to stop the tea towel drooping onto the dough and sticking to it and making the buns misshapen.
13. Leave the dough balls in their covered trays, in a warm place, to rise slightly, for just 15 minutes.
14. With floured fingertips, press down each dough ball to flatten it, firmly but gently.
15. Check if the off-but-light-on oven is still warm enough, if not reheat it as before (for 1 minute without the dough in then turn it off but leave the oven light on) and then leave the buns in the warm place to rise for 45 minutes.
16. After this rising time, sprinkle a little flour over each dough ball and put the trays of dough into the NOT PREHEATED oven, turn it to 200 C (180 C fan) and 'bake' the rolls in the oven for 15 minutes. (It seems odd not to pre-heat but I love this method for bread items - the warming oven will heat up itself and the dough, allowing more rise and then it will cook the bread rolls perfectly).
17. After the 15 minutes in the oven, TURN the rolls UPSIDE DOWN and add on 5 - 10 more minutes oven time (as needed) - the rolls should be lightly golden brown all over and the bases should feel firm and sound hollow when tapped.
18. Cool the bread buns on their baking trays for 5 minutes, then put them on wire racks to cool properly.
19. Once the rolls are cool (this will take 20 minutes in a cool spot on wire racks) enjoy them with Linda McCartney's Meat Free Mozzarella Burgers, these sliced pickles and homemade lazy plastic-free coleslaw (1 carrot peeled, topped and tailed, then cut into delicate ribbons with a potato peeler, then chopped with a sharp knife into small carrot flakes and then well mixed with 3 tbsp mayonnaise).
20. Enjoy!
Adapted from Paul Hollywood's Floury Baps recipe.