I have been making morning buns as of late.  But after a two week hiatus, I almost forgot the recipe.  In prior bakes, I wasn’t documenting (rare) since I was baking in rapid succession.  I was simply working off a base recipe while making my own adjustments. However, with me almost forgetting the recipe, I thought it best to write it down for prosperity.

Morning Bun Recipe

Makes 12 morning buns.

Ingredients:

Detrempe

• 600 g all-purpose flour
• 60 g sugar
• 12 g kosher salt
• 10 g instant yeast
• 200 g tepid water
• 200 g tepid milk
• 30 g of melted butter or oil

Topping

• 100 g sugar
• 20 g cinnamon
• 2 tbs of melted butter

Butter Block

• 2 stick unslalted butter, sliced horizontally into 18 planks

Method:

• Mix flour, sugar, yeast, and salt
• Mix in milk, water, and butter/oil until ingredients are incorporated
• With a dough scraper, fold the dough once so that it’s not a shaggy mess. However, don’t overwork.*
• Rest for 60 minutes, until dough doubles in size
• Roll dough into a 14″ x 18″ square
• Place the butter planks on the dough, emulating a butter block**
• Fold the dough so that the butter is completely covered and letter fold #1
• Roll the dough out and letter fold #2***
• Rest the dough in the refrigerator, covered, for 20 minutes. Prep 2 large muffin pans with butter.****

 

• Melt about 2tbs of butter.  Mix sugar and cinnamon for topping mixture.
• Roll the dough out into a 14″ x 18″ rectangle
• Brush dough with melted butter and spread the topping
• Roll dough into cylinder
• Cut into approx. 2.5″ pieces, yielding 12 rounds
• Place each round into a muffin spot
• Proof for 60 minutes, about 30 minutes before preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Put the morning buns into the oven and lower heat to 375 degrees.  Bake for 18-25 minutes.
• Take out of the oven, let cool a minute or two, then remove the morning bugs from the pan and cool on a wire rack
• After you can gently handle, coat each bun in sugar.

* One fold smooths out the dough. I don’t do more folds or knead as I don’t want to develop a lot of gluten.

** I thought I was all slick for doing this cheater lamination, until I looked at a Jacques Pepin book and he’s been doing for ages.

*** I used to do 3 folds ala a croissant, but found that I like the texture of 2 folded dough for my morning buns.

**** If I only do 2 folds, I don’t rest the dough in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. With 2 folds the gluten hasn’t been worked sufficiently and the dough remains easy to roll out. With 3 folds, the rest of the dough is quite welcome.