Puffy Buns -- Oh Yeah!
I love the word buns. It can be plain goofy ("Honeybuns" and "Buns of Steel") and it can conjure up images of pure lust. For bread, of course--if I think of someone's butt in terms of the word "buns," all I can see are two gleaming, golden-brown parker house rolls peeking out of a pair of jeans.
It's 4am and I'm trying to be quick about this. I want my bed but I just HAD to announce with trumpet fanfare and every other damn sound of celebration: I just made the most glorious sourdough buns!
I just tasted one and maybe I will have to rescind the "most glorious" bit. But they're still pretty damn good. Very light and... how to describe? You know when you sloooowly pull a bun apart and you see all this stretching of gossamer layers and elastic strands?
It's just like that. I LOVE that.)
And they are almost entirely my creation. Very exciting. My buns (Heh. I know, sorry.) were vaguely conceived after glimpsing a picture of cinnamon rolls on a blog I recently discovered by a lady who...knits, which is admirable, of course, but it is her sourdough recipes I am interested in. More and more, I am attracted to recipes that come with alluring pictures, which is why I'm often inspired to bake when I spot something yummy on a food blog. I trust the photographs more than someone just sticking a recipe up on the Web.
So I had this image of feather-soft cinnamon rolls in my head. But my husband don't like cinnamon rolls. Too sweet. Too messy. He eats things that are easy and convenient. I sigh... Still, I wanted rolled buns, damnit.
Also, yesterday I candied citrus peels (will write about that another time), which I wanted to use in my bread.
Did I mention I used my sourdough starter for this recipe? However, I do have something of a confession to make...
Erm, but it's late. Will continue this tomorrow. But after the previous bread disaster, I just HAD to show you my beautiful buns (I know, sorry).
4 Comments:
Oh Rach, those rolls look so good. I know exactly what you are talking about when you talked about the stretchy bit when you pull them apart.
Why didn't you tell me earlier that you were going to make candied citrus peel. You know that mokusei tree in my yard? (tiny yellow flowers that are used in a lot of Chinese dessert) I used to collect the flowers and candy it to be put into desserts. Of course, I never get to use them on anything, so this year I gave up. And now they are all on the ground. I think they would've been lovely in one of your breads.
BTW, I made pumpkin rolls last night. Well, actually am still in the process. Since I didn't have time for two risings of the dough, I left the rolls in the fridge to rise for 24 hours. Will bake them tonight and send you photos.
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Thanks, Lynn.
Oh, candied flowers in bread--that would be so pretty! Do they have any particular flavor or fragrance?
By the way, I think you can include pictures with your comments, you know? All you need to do is save your photos on somewhere like Ofoto (but I know Snapfish doesn't allow this), get the URL of the photo, and then stick it inside this tag: img src="http://www.example.com/mypicture.jpg" (but you have to enclose the whole thing in pointy brackets (this < and this >).
Cause I would love to have your pumpkin roll pictures on my blog! Well, I'm sure you would probably like your pumpkin roll pictures on *your* blog...
Tell (and show)us how they turned out!
Posted by Rachel
Yes, the flower has a distinct sweet scent. Did you not notice it in the beginning of October (before those awful typhoons came) when you walked out onto the street? They are everwhere in Tokyo, but because the flowers are so tiny you don't notice them except for the smell. Remember my old house in Setagaya? The entire yard was lined by those trees. Neighbors called my house the "mokusei" house. But they only bloom once a year for about a week.
Posted by Lynn