At first I wasn’t going to post this recipe, because it was a bit of a failure. The original recipe was called ‘fluffy dinner buns’ but, as I’m sure you can tell from my title, mine were not fluffy at all. Surprisingly, they tasted amazing despite being as heavy as hockey pucks and never turning the delicious golden brown colour that they were supposed to. They were the perfect accompaniment for the peasant soup that I made that same day (which I’m glad to say wasn’t a failure). And, perhaps you will have better luck than I did with this quick recipe. If you have any tips as to what went wrong, I would be glad to hear them (I did, however, check the expiry date on my yeast).
This recipe for dense-but-quick dinner buns yields 6 simple, fast and charmingly cumbrous rolls.
3/8 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
3/8 cup hot water
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
2 – 2 ½ cups flour
½ tbsp active dry yeast
Pour the milk into a microwave safe container. Add the butter to the milk and put it in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 170 degrees. While the milk and butter are doing their thang in the microwave, turn on the tap to get your really hot water. Apparently, hot water is what makes these buns rise quickly (although mine did not rise quickly at all – not hot enough?).
Put the milk/butter and hot water in the bottom of your Mixer if you have one (I used a wooden spoon, and then switched to my hands because I am not rich enough for such wonders). Add the sugar and salt, then add 1 cup of the flour – mix for about 1 minute.
Add the yeast. Continue to mix, adding the rest of the flour – 1/2 cup at a time.
You will know that you have added enough flour when the dough scrapes the side of the bowl clean. Continue to mix for another 5 minutes.
Cover dough with plastic wrap and let sit, on top of the warm oven, for 5 minutes. I was told the plastic wrap is needed in order to trap the heat – but I’m sure a dish towel would also work.
Butter the inside of a small pan – a cake pan works well, or small casserole dish. You just need enough room to place 6 rolls into it without them touching. You can also use a muffin tin.
After 5 minutes, take your dough out of the bowl and cut it into 6 equal (ish) pieces.
Gently round them into balls, and put them in your buttered pan.
Put the pan into the warm 170 degree oven. Let them rise for about 20 minutes or until they have risen an 1 inch above the rim of the pan. This is where things started to go wrong for me – because I had to let them sit for about an hour before they had risen enough.
Once they are the size you want, leave the pan in the oven and turn the heat up to 350 degrees – Bake for 15 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. I baked mine for a total of 25 minutes and yet they remained snow white. Oh well.
Take out of oven and brush with a little softened butter and Voila! Dense-but-quick dinner buns!