Homemade Buns

     I can't remember the last time I bought bread from the grocery store.  I've bought bagels or croissants for school lunches when I've been in a pinch, but my kids won't eat store bought bread.  Bread making is often made out to be complicated and difficult.  It's not.  It does take some practice to get the feel of the dough right, but bread dough is very forgiving.
     The ingredients are simple.  The simplest are yeast, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, water and all-purpose flour.  These ingredients are flexible.  The fat can be lard, vegetable shortening, canola oil or another vegetable oil (Stick with light flavoured fats.).  I've even probably used margarine.  The liquid can be milk or water and eggs can be added or not.  The flour can be simply white flour or a combination of white and whole wheat (around % whole wheat will keep it a light and soft dough), other types of flour like rye.  I will often put rolled oats and flax seed through the food processor and add it to my bread.  Or leave it whole if you like the added texture.  My kids don't, but I do.  A couple handfuls of Red River porridge adds great texture and flavour to brown bread.  The sugar can be plain white sugar, honey, or brown sugar in a brown bread.
     Sounds simple, right?  It really is!
     The only two ingredients I measure are the water and the yeast.  I measure the water to decide how big a batch of bread I'm making.  1 cup of water for about one loaf of bread/one dozen buns.  And a 1/2 Tablespoon instant yeast for every cup of water.  I usually do 6 cups of water and 3 Tablespoons yeast.  Anything more would be a little harder to manage.
     Warm water goes in the bowl first.  The temperature needs to be nice and warm; about the temperature of a nice warm shower.  Then the oil, sugar (about 1 cup of each) and salt (about 1 Tablespoon).  Stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar and salt.  Add some of flour, on top of the water, then the instant yeast, and stir it in.  Keep adding flour, about one cup at a time, until it's hard to stir.  Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead.  Add flour just a little at a time until it's nice and smooth and not too sticky.  It should feel slightly sticky, without leaving any dough on your hands.  Coat the ball of dough with oil and put back in the bowl to rise.  Let it rise for about 20 minutes, then it needs to be punched down.  Take the dough out of the bowl and push the air out and refold the dough back into a nice ball.  Let it rise for another 20 minutes and then make into loaves or buns.

     I remember making buns with my mom when I was a kid.  I would watch her and wonder if I would ever be able to make buns as well as her. I think it probably wasn't until I'd left home and made buns on my own for a few years that I thought mine might be comparable. Now I get to make buns with my kids.

     They love helping to make buns.  I usually give them their own pan, and give them each a piece of dough, and they shape it however they choose.   We've had kitties and worms and aliens and other strange shapes.  But after letting the buns rise for an hour, the odd shapes sort of even out.

     Bake the buns at about 380-400 degrees F.  About 20 minutes I think, but I never use a timer.  Sorry.
Just bake them until they are a nice golden brown.  In my oven, if I'm baking two pans, I switch them around half way through the baking time.  When the top pan is getting nicely browned, I switch them so the bottom pan will get brown on it's top, and the top pan will get brown on it's bottom.  Make sense?

     I like making bread by hand, but I have friends who often use their bread maker to make the dough, then they put it in pans and bake in the oven.  I've used my Kitchenaid to mix the dough too, but the mixer can't do as big a batch of dough, and I have 4 kids to bake for and make school lunches for!
     Look at several recipes and practice.   Experiment with different ingredients for different flavours and textures.  There's nothing like freshly baked bread.  I've had a couple of flops that the loaves were so heavy they were inedible (they made the birds happy though!), but for the most part imperfect homemade bread is still far superior to store bought.