Sesame buns, successfully!

This is a wonderful morning! It may look like any other morning recently, bright, it may feel like any other recent mornings, hot, and it may be like any other mornings, alone. But no, it's not. It's better than the other past few mornings. Really!

I made bread, successfully! Yeah!!!!

Okay, technically I didn't really make bread, I made buns. Oh but I used bread recipe and shaped the dough into 9 buns, so maybe technically I did make bread, but baked it as buns.

I woke up slightly later than I wanted to and got right into making my breakfast and making my bread. I heated up the milk for my oats and made extra for the bread. While the oats were cooking, I sifted the flour. I used all purpose flour, the only flour I had. I used up all my leftover flour. Adding 2 spoonful of sugar and a big tablespoon of instant yeast, I also added some cinnamon powder. For fun. But forgot to throw a pinch of salt into it.

Excitedly, I nearly poured my now luke warm milk into the dry ingredient mixture when I realized I had not added any butter or oil into my recipe. So I stopped myself in time, poured out some oil and mixed with some milk, and poured the mixture into the dry ingredients to kick start my fun. I then poured some more of the milk. Using a wooden spatula, I mixed all of them around and made sure all the flour turned into dough.

Then, I took out the dough and kneaded for a while on the counter. It was tough job. I could feel myself struggling to do it. The dough didn't feel soft, giving me some fear that I might end up with some rock buns. With that fear in mind, I continued to knead, going about it for almost 5 minutes, if not more. Sweat beats were forming all over me. Yes, I am that lousy.

This was the day I am grateful for the sun, the heat really helped to puff up my dough. I oiled the dough and left it to rest in the pot at the balcony where the sun was the strongest. After half an hour or so, I went to check and got really pleased when I saw the dough has more than doubled. It was like a giant ball now. Without further ado, I brought it in, boxed it down to release all the air and took it out to knead again.

After that I cut the dough into 8 parts. I wanted 9 parts but got only 8. Anyhow, I shaped the dough into little balls and dipped the tip into some sesame seeds before placing the little ball into an oiled pan. I did the same with the rest, but pinched out some dough from some of the remaining 7 to make another ball. So in the end, I got my 9 sesame balls arranged in 3x3 in the pan. Not uniformly perfect in size but certainly perfectly arranged.

After letting them proved again for about 15 minutes, it was time to bake. I was so happy and excited to see them in the oven. They really looked good there, all puffed up and boomed up and round and serene. I baked them for almost 20 minutes at 205-210 degree Celcius, taking them out once each to brush them with butter and rotate the pan.

The buns are now sitting on the iron rack cooling while I'm typing this out. They are just screaming to me, eat me, eat me! Hahaha.. I am glad they turned out well! Pat at the back for me!