Milk Buns
enriched dough
These soft milk buns are fantastic for summer barbecues, for burgers, chicken schnitzel or chargrilled vegetable sandwiches, or simply filled with homemade pickles and cheese.
This is the first time I have baked using a tangzhong, which is popularly used in a number of Asian bread recipes, and relies upon a Japanese technique for cooking a type of roux paste of flour and water together over a heat until it thickens. It allows a higher hydration dough for this type of bun than you might otherwise use, creates a very soft crumb, and can also contribute to keeping the buns softer for longer. This is an enriched dough with melted butter and beaten egg as well as the milk, and sweetened slightly with caster sugar.
The first time I made these they turned out slightly dense, and it transpired I had fallen foul of out-of-date yeast! It sounds obvious but to ensure a light and fluffy bun, do make sure your yeast is in date, and really give the ingredients a good mixing if you’re doing it by hand to make sure the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Makes approximately 6-8 buns
(These make a good size burger bun, but for medium size buns adapt the recipe to 80-90g chunks of dough instead when you divide it, which makes roughly 10 buns.)