But I have no-one to teach me.
Tips, my fellow baking Dopers? Recipes? Anything?
Bueller?
Here’s an easy but good bun recipe: Everyone's Favorite Buns Recipe | Land O’Lakes
Or if you don’t want to deal with yeast, you could make popovers: Popovers Recipe | King Arthur Baking
This is a vague request. Do you wish to make hamburger buns? Dinner rolls? Something else?
Here is a video recipe that you bake along with: Simple Dinner Rolls Recipe by Tasty
I wish I could do a better job for this recipe, but it is cut down from a very large size recipe. You can go a bitsy up or down to fit the equipment you have.
.75 ounces dry yeast (21.4 g)(7.5 teaspoons)
3-1/3 ounces sugar (96 g)(23 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon salt
.75 cup warm water(179 ml)
1 egg
1/5 cup buttermilk(50 ml)(10 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla(5 ml)
3 tablespoons softened butter (1-1/2 ounces)(43 g)
18-1/8 ounces flour (514 g) I use a mix of half bread flour and half all purpose)
Mix the sugar, yeast and salt and dissolve in the warm water. Let it sit for about five minutes. Add the egg, buttermilk and vanilla, stir together. The add the butter and flour. If you have a mixer with a bread hook let it work at medium speed for about five minutes. This should result in a smooth dough that is not too stiff. If you have to knead with your hands it will take a will longer, but keep kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Let the dough sit covered with a damp cloth so it can relax, for maybe fifteen minutes. Then shape it into pieces of the size desired. Dough balls of about 1-1/2 ounces make good sized dinner rolls. Grease muffin tins and let them rise there. Or if you take the same piece you can roll/stretch it into a piece about 5 inches long, roll it in seasoning, let it rise on parchment paper and you have breadsticks. Pieces of about 2-1/2 ounces, rolled into a ball and let rised on parchment paper make good hamburger buns.
I bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 175 degrees Celsius.
I wish I could do better for telling you about it, it is a very tolerant dough that can be used in a great variety of ways.
If you want a version of this dough that uses whole wheat flour, increase the water by about 5%. For the flour use 1/3 by weight of whole wheat flour, and have the rest be all purpose, with no bread flour.
Don’t be so shy, give us the full-sized recipe!
If nothing else, having that much dough on hand will give Northern Piper the chance to play trial-and-error with his bun-forming technique.
Buns to slather with butter and lashings of raspberry jam.
Thanks, Baker! Will try next free weekend.
I remember my mom baking buns on Saturday afternoon while I watched the Bugs Bunny show. Will try it for the Cub. 
Adding a little mashed potato, even as little as a teaspoonful, to the dough will keep the baked bread or buns fresh longer. Too much, and you’ll have very dry bread that tastes like potato.
Well, here goes, but you will need a really big mixer. It give you about 11 pounds of dough.
4 ounces yeast
18 ounces sugar
5 teaspoons salt
4 cups water
5 extra large eggs
buttermilk to make a combined weight of 18-1/4 ounces
5 teaspoons vanilla
8 ounces butter
96 ounces flour
You really do need a BIG mixer for this, it is too much for hand kneading.
If you encounter issues, or have questions, feel free to ask, I hope I have not screwed anything up.
Following any recipe will give good results, except for the X-factors, yeast and temperature. If you use conventional yeast, you have to make sure you don’t kill it. And you won’t know if you did until an hour later, when your dough is just sitting there like a bump on a log. Then you start again. I mostly use instant yeast and get good enough results. And you need to have a proper room temperature for the dough to raise.
Then there’s kneading. You have to knead the dough to get the right amount of gluten. Too little or too much and your breads won’t be right. But, for me, internet cooks don’t provide a sufficient guide as to how much is just right. I wish I had someone with experience to show me.
If you do breads a lot, you need a serious mixer. I have a vintage Sunbeam that is good for everything except dough. It can’t handle it.
If you mix the yeast, warm water, and whatever sugar and let it sit you will be able to tell if the yeast is alive, it will start to bubble, or foam up a little. That will insure it is working and you will not have to worry that the yeast will not develop the dough.
And for the temperature of the room, what I do is put a pan of water, taken off the boil, in my unlit oven, and place the product in there. Keep an eye on it as it begins to rise. Reheat the water every so often, as needed. Take the risen product out, get the oven up to the desired temp, and you are ready to bake. At work I have a proofbox that I can adjust to different temps and humidity levels, but at home one must improvise. If the room is warm it may be enough to leave dough out, but keep it covered in plastic, or the dough mass in a bowl with a damp towel covering it.
Kneading just the dough for one or two loaves can be done by hand but one has to keep working at it. Resist the temptation to add flour on the kneading surface if dough is just a bit sticky, as kneading progress the gluten develops and the dough tightens up. Use a scraper to get up dough if it sticks too much. However, if you mixed properly to begin with this should not be a problem for too long.
I could not make all the dough I do at work if I did not have a heavy mixer with a dough hook. It is a 20-qt Hobart mixer, not all that large for professionals but far from the largest. Google up the name and you will see. I have worked on floor models that are much larger, in a hospital kitchen once.
I use this recipe from The Great Canadian Baking Show. It’s easy and extra buns freeze well.
Ingredients
1/4 cup warm water
3 tbsp sugar, divided
1 pkg (8 g) active dry yeast
4 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup whole milk, warmed
3 eggs, divided, room temperature
Sea salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dehydrated onions (optional)
Instructions
- Grease two 9-inch round pans or one 13 x 9-inch pan with butter and set aside.
- Stir water,1 tbsp sugar and yeast together in a small bowl and set aside until frothy, about 10 minutes.
- Whisk together flour, remaining 2 tbsp sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add yeast mixture, butter, milk and 2 lightly beaten eggs. With a wooden spoon, stir together to form a ragged dough.
- Place bowl on stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix for 7 minutes on medium-low.
- Scrape dough into a large, well-oiled bowl; turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean, lightly-dampened kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm area until doubled in size (about 1 hour 15 minutes).
- Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and punch down. Divide into 18 equal portions.
- Pinch bottoms (!) and roll gently to form balls.
- Place in pan(s), evenly spaced apart, and cover lightly with plastic wrap or kitchen towel. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375° F.
- Beat remaining egg and brush gently over dough balls. Sprinkle with salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and/or dehydrated onions, if desired.
Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden.
That’s a heck of a lot of yeast. 2 1/2 Tablespoons for a cup of liquid is wayy beyond anything I’ve every seen. For modern yeasts, use 2 teaspoons. You’d likely get some off flavors with that much yeast in this sized recipe (I don’t know why yeast doesn’t scale linearly, but apparently it doesn’t).
OP, I don’t know what kind of buns you’re interested in. It’s kind of a vague term. This is a great recipe for light brioche burger buns: light brioche burger buns – smitten kitchen
Now I know. Grandma had her bread recipe memorized and so well practiced that she never used things like actual measuring cups and the like. The thing that always mystified us was her addition of seemingly random amounts of potato. We have yet to sucessfully replicate her recipe.
Biscuits. It’s biscuits you need! Not the English kind, the Southern American kind that goes so well with what you wish to place upon it. If you are interested in a recipe I can post one. If not, carry on.
(Clears throat). Don’t you mean “rolls?” Or is that a NY thing?
In any case, romansperson is correct. A good homemade biscuit slathered with butter and preserves is transcendent. Use blackberry rather than raspberry for the ultimate experience, though.
You Merikans are talking about scones!
If you’re ever in Ottawa, go to the Scone Witch on Elgin Street. Mmmmm.
No. Biscuits are not scones.