Buns... and tea?

Basic Baked Bun

(Makes approx. 20 mini buns)

Dough:

1 cup of warm water

2 Tbsp of milk

1 egg

75g unsalted butter

500g bread flour

85g sugar

1 Tbsp instant dried yeast

Extras

Sesame seeds (optional)

Egg (for egg wash)

Sugary syrup

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp warm water

Pop all the dough ingredients in the order the bread machine requires you to do so and use the dough setting. Relax, chill for an hour and a half until it finishes... then relax more (an hour or two is good) because it likes to take time to rise. Remove dough from machine and on a lightly floured surface give it a bit of a punching. Divide into 20s or however small or big you want your buns and roll into balls.

Let balls of dough rest and they will rise to about double the size... It normally takes about an hour (an episode of American Idol).

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease (or line) baking tray and pop in the pre-buns. Sprinkle seeds if you like or anything fun you like that isn't ridiculous like a broccoli. Bake for about 25 minutes. My buns turned out a little browner because I used an egg wash too early. Nothing wrong with that... but to get a lighter finish, bake for about 10 minutes then brush buns with the egg wash. Another 10 minutes later brush the sugary syrup over the buns and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven and probably let rest a bit (unless you have a super mouth that can handle heat) and then enjoy!





Lot's of buns!

Maybe I was lazy but I like the effect of pulling buns apart. It is a lot of yeast to use but there is a bit more sugar used in this recipe so it was necessary. Brushing with honey also works but I don't like honey (weirdo). They are still soft the next day (what??! you can't eat 20 at once?!) but taste amazing in the microwave for 10-20secs. These buns are great with fillings too!



Random animals

Pandas!



Snail and peaches.

Lantern festival last week was so much fun. Missed out on last year's due to earthquake (earthquake earthquake earthquake... sick of it yet?) but I loved the new location this year. More space to move around and it looked like a lot more stalls for food and junk... I love junk. I bought an awesome panda hat and wore it the whole festival because I'm not allowed to just buy things for the sake of buying things and actually need to use them (stupid Jack...).