The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book_ A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking - Laurel Robertson [100]
Cover and let the shaped rolls rise in a very warm place. To prevent them from drying out and forming a tough top crust that can’t bake nicely, keep a pan of hot water near them while they rise, or seal the rising rolls in a puffed-up plastic bag that has been rinsed out with hot water. Let them have plenty of time to rise: as much as 45 minutes or an hour, even, until they show slight signs of sagging, then pop them in a preheated 400°F oven for about 20 minutes—just until they are beautifully brown. If the rolls have risen particularly well, they may bake even faster. Brush them with melted butter, just after baking.
If you can’t plan to serve them immediately, let the rolls cool, seal tight, and store them in the refrigerator. Warm them for 15 to 20 minutes before serving, wrapped lightly in a damp towel so that they won’t dry out. An alternative is to make a brown-and-serve version: bake the rolls the first time for half an hour at 275°F so that they cook but do not brown. To serve, preheat the oven to 450°F and bake the rolls about 15 minutes, or just until nicely brown. Be careful (yawn) not to overbake.
Buns
For making buns, any high-rising bread dough will do, but preferably not one that has a fermentation longer than the normal 4-hour dough. Basic Bread, Buttermilk Bread, Egg Bread, Featherpuff, Brian’s Bread, or Soymilk Bread would all be good choices. If convenient, use no more than 1 tablespoon of sweetener per loaf unless you like really sweet buns. Prepare the dough as usual, covering and letting it rise twice, then rounding it into loaf-sized balls to rest before shaping.
As soon as one of the big balls has relaxed, press it out into an oblong about one inch thick. Cut this into six pieces as equal as possible, and round each of them into a little ball. Work on the balls one after another in order, covering them with a damp towel or an inverted bowl to prevent their drying out while they are resting. Use a little flour on the board as necessary to keep the dough from sticking.
If you were making rolls, you would simply set the balls to rise, and when they were baked, they would be round, even vaguely spherical, puffs—at once too tall and too small to put around a soyburger! To render these round rolls into proper buns, all that is necessary is to press the shaped dough flat with a rolling pin (or your hand) so that they are as big around as you want the finished bun to be: they will rise up, but not out. Work quickly but gently, being careful not to tear the smooth surface of the dough as you roll it out; aim to flatten but not squash the dough. If you want seeds on the buns, sprinkle the tabletop with the seed of your choice before you start rolling each one, and turn it once in the rolling process.
When you have them all lined up on their greased baking sheet, ready to rise for the last time, they will look fairly unpromising, flat as pancakes and nearly the same size. Still, have faith. Cover and put them in a warm humid place to rise, and give them plenty of time: they can proof until they feel very spongy, and a gently made indentation doesn’t fill in at all.
Preheat the oven so that when they are ready, it will be ready too, at 400°F, if possible. (If you have a loaf of bread to bake at the same time, the bread’s temperature will do well enough for the buns, but they’ll take a little longer, and be a little drier.) Bake the buns in the top half of the oven so that they will stay soft on the bottom.
Put a small pan of boiling water in the bottom of the oven for the first ten minutes. Bake until the buns are a pretty golden brown all over, about 20 minutes. (If you want to bake two pans at a time, on two racks, place a third cookie sheet under the pan on the lower rack to help protect it from too much bottom heat. Even so, you may want to reverse them midway.)
These buns are substantial, each one containing about as much bread as two slices of loaf bread. As your technique improves, you may want to include less dough in each bun: in that case, they will be flatter