I Made Sausage Buns!

Recently my kids started loving sausage buns, so I had been buying the sausage buns from the bakery twice a week.  Watching them eat the buns reminded me of the sausage buns my Mum used to make when I was a little girl.  So I did what any mother would do: I googled for a simple sausage bun recipe and modified it to my preferences.  My only worry was the kneading bit: I do not own a mixer to knead the bread dough, so I had to knead the dough entirely by hand.

The website that gave me the recipe had lots of pictures to accompany the recipe and it helped a lot.  The defining moment when I made these sausage buns was when I saw the dough had rose after leaving it for an hour.  That’s when I KNEW my kneading had paid off! 🙂

Taste-wise it was rather good, but the buns were not as soft and fluffy as I’d wanted them to be, perhaps because I didn’t knead them long or hard enough, and upon further *investigation online*, it could be due to me being impatient and adding a wee bit of flour to make it not stick whilst kneading.  Hey, I’m not a machine, right? 😛  Well, at least I know I am on the right track…might enlist the help of my kids to help knead next time I make this..hehe! … and will definitely knead the dough LONGER!  After all, kneading dough is also very good toning exercise for the arms! 🙂

Here’s the recipe I used to make sausage buns (adapted from the Sausage Buns recipe from Visual Recipes).  I used organic ingredients where possible, and for the sausages, I bought those from the cold cuts deli in the grocery store (the ones that sell the sausages by weight).

Ingredients

• 250 g organic unbleached bread flour
• 1 tbsp yeast
• 100 ml fresh milk
• 1½ tbsp sugar
• 1½ tbsp butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 egg
• 5 sausages
• A pinch of salt
• A little bit of beaten raw egg for “washing” top of buns.

Method

1. Place flour, yeast, fresh milk, sugar, butter, egg and salt into a large mixing bowl.
2. Using either an electric dough mixer or your hands, mix the combination together and knead into a dough.  The result should be a non-sticky, but shiny and smooth dough.
3. Dust with a little flour, cover with a kitchen towel and leave in a cool, dry place for an hour or so, for it to proof (grow).
4. Cut each sausage cross-sectionally so you get 2 pieces for each sausage you use.
5. After an hour the dough should be double the size of the original.  Punch the air out by continuing to knead it for a bit.
6. Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces.
7. Roll each piece into a long strip.
8. Wrap each strip of dough around each piece of sausage and placed on a lined or lightly greased baking tray.
9. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave aside for 20 minutes.
10. After 20 minutes, wash surface of sausage buns with beaten egg and bake in the oven at 180ºC for 10 minutes or until golden in color.