Soft Butter Bun

This is my 4th time making buns and my 1st successful one - thanks to my breadmaker
I have given my white flag for manual kneading, it's too tiring and too time consuming for me, lazy busy mum with 2 too energetic young kids :P
And even though many do with stand mixer, I just don't have the heart to see my mixer does such a tough job hehe....perhaps next time I won't feel this way when I own a heavy duty mixer :P

My 1st try as well as 2nd try were far from satisfying
My 3rd one - I didn't even bother to post, it went straight to rubbish bin - the worst among all!

This recipe is from MamaFami's blog (found through Melly), the texture was nice and soft, but it's not too soft that it'll turn flat and stuck at the roof of your tongue when eaten :P
And it still has the same texture the next day!
Not too sure whether it will stay the same for the third day cos mine was gone the next morning! :)

I baked them 2 days ago on Friday morning
Wrong decision to start baking these cutie buns a little late and only left not much time before my kids got back from school
By the time it's time for me to do the shaping, it's time for me to fetch the kids
No choice, kids comes first *grin*
Reaching home, quickly prepared their lunch and while they had their luch, I decided not to follow the lovely shapes in the original recipe I planned to try and just did the simplest one - next time I will, when I have the whole day for myself :)

Aside from the shaping, I was very happy with the result..I got soft fluffy little buns! :)

I put 3 different fillings: dark chocolate, strawberry jam and pineapple jam
Below is the one with dark chocolate filling:

What you need:

140 ml water
1 egg
30g caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon bread improver (original recipe: bread softener)
250g bread flour
50g superfine flour
2-1/2 tablespoons milk powder
1-1/2 teaspoon dried instant yeast
30g margarine, at room temperature

filling as desired - I prepared dark chocolate buttons, pineapple jam and strawberry jam
(original recipe used chocolate, sausages, red beans)

For glazing:
1 egg + 1 tablespoon fresh milk
margarine - for brushing after the buns are out of the oven

Using bread maker:

Pour water, egg, sugar, salt and bread improver (softener) into the bread maker pan. Top it with bread flour, superfine flour, milk powder and yeast

Set the breadmaker to Dough function

Once the dough is just combined, add in margarine and leave the breadmaker to continue doing it's job. This process will take about 1 1/2 hour including prooving

Divide the dough to 55g each and shape into small balls

Let them rest for 30 minutes (original recipe = 10mins)

Ready to be shaped - do as desired. Let rise until almost doubled in volume

Before baking, brush the dough with egg wash

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes in a preheated oven at 200 C, or until the bread is golden in color

Once out of the oven, brush with a bit of margarine

Let cool. Keep in an airtight container