Easy Bread Rolls

First of all, if you aren't convinced that you should try making some bread, may I suggest you take a moment to remember how it smells.

Right, now that you are thoroughly persuaded, the next order of business is this: get a bloody stand mixer. It is still perfectly do-able without, but it makes it approximately twelve times easier.

*waits*

Got one? OK, good. We may begin.

Ingredients:

• 225ml warm (not hot!) water
• 1 pack of instant yeast
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 80ml veg oil
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 egg (sans shell) plus another to brush the tops with (optional)
• 570g plain flour

Method:

• Whisk up your water, yeast and sugar, and bang in in the mixer
• Turn it on, a low speed is fine, and add the oil, salt and an egg
• Swap whatever attachment you're currently using for the dough hook. (Unless you're a rebel like me, and you just use the hook all the way through.) Chuck in your flour. I do it a bit at a time.
• Once you've mixed in all the flour and you've got a big ball of dough, you can turn the mixer off. Dough might be a bit sticky, that's OK.
• Get a bit of oil on your hands and work surface, and you can start to divide this sucker. I did not stutter. It doesn't need to prove for 2 hours in your sodding airing cupboard first or anything like that. I find it easiest to make it into a short, fat sausage shape, divide it into three, and then divide each one into three again. If I'm doing burgers, I divide into 8 instead so they are sliiiightly bigger (because I like big burgers).
• Shape them. Balls is fine. Boring, but fine.
• Now cover those beauties with a tea towel and let them be for 15 minutes. (You can leave them longer if you want, but 15 mins is fine.)
• Switch the oven to get hot while you wait - 190C. Have a cup of tea, why not.)
• Beat an egg like it owes you money and brush that over the tops of your buns. (The bread, you perv, THE BREAD.) This bit is allegedly optional, ha ha. Don't skip it. You could use milk instead if you like, I'm not the egg police. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on there if you have any. Especially if these are destined for burgers.
• Sling them in the oven for, oh, I dunno, 15 mins? Maybe a little less if you have a fan assisted oven. They should be a lovely golden brown colour when you take them out. Black is not OK. If you've brushed them with egg before baking they will be nice and shiny as well.
• LET THEM COOL SLIGHTLY. Cooling is part of the breadmaking process. You'll bugger the structural integrity of the bread if you get impatient. Ideally you want to eat these while they're still warm though. That's the beauty of making your own bread. You can't beat fresh, warm rolls. 😋

Et voila! Not only do you have the perfect soup accompaniment/snack/ beginnings of a lovely sandwich or burger, your kitchen also smells fucking delicious. You are welcome.

Notes:

• I don't know how well this works if you're not using instant yeast. My best suggestion is muck about with it and find out. I'm not sure on the quantity, but I think you'd have to whisk it up with the water and sugar and leave it to stand for a few minutes, until it goes frothy. The rest of the recipe would be the same. Actually, my best suggestion is just to play it safe and use the instant stuff, like a normal person.
• If you don't have any vegetable oil, sunflower is fine. I wouldn't use olive, that would be weird. Rapeseed does not work. Corn might? I dunno, never tried.
• Yes, just ordinary plain flour for this one. (All purpose flour, for those across the pond.) You can use "bread flour" but you don't have to. I prefer how they turn out with ordinary flour.
• I love this bread recipe because almost every ingredient is something I've probably already got.
• These work great for burgers. They are a little like brioche, only a bit less rich. The dough is a lot easier to work with than actual brioche dough.
• You could probably throw in a few cubes of butter along with the flour to enrich this bread and make it even more brioche-y. It would need to be room temp and quite soft. (Don't microwave it or melt it.)
• You could also sub some of that water for milk to make them a bit richer - I intend to try this next time.
• I don't know where this came from originally. A friend gave it to me, and it's been scribbled on the side of my fridge for ages.

Are you gonna try this? Let me know how it goes!

If bread making still feels intimidating, try this recipe instead.

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Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment so I can reciprocate.

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If you still need convincing how gorgeous fresh bread is: