No Knead Spicy Buns - Beginner's Perfect Bread!

How do you feel when you bake something very easy and its turns out great? I made these AMAZING buns yesterday and they turned out fabulous! Very soft, great textured, very good in taste, relatively quick and easy to make. There, I have used so many adjectives in one sentence to describe these! Yes, they were really very good! And if you are someone who has never handled yeast or previously tried baking with yeast and did not really go ga-ga over the experience, here is one recipe which will make you fall in love with yeast. You don't need to know a lot about yeast, you don't need to know great techniques. This is one super easy recipe which will work just fine for anybody. All you need is one very important ingredient... good yeast. And the rest is a breeze..

These are No-Knead Spicy Buns, bread wherein you do not need to do any amount of kneading at all. Kneading for the right amount of time is one of the key factors which results in good bread. Using the right amount of liquid when you are mixing and kneading the dough is another related key factor. And these 2 things taken care of will up your chances of baking a good bread to a large extent. If you have been baking breads, but not tried this category of the clan, please do! Having baked a few breads including the No-Knead Date And Walnut Mini Buns, the ease with which I baked these buns and the result left me smiling all day.

These buns can be baked with minimal effort and fuss and absolutely worth your while. Please do try these out, in fact I INSIST you try these out . At the cost of sounding very immodest, I want say you will thank me for this. Just as I have been thanking Champa for this keeper, keeper of a recipe.

Having talked about how fantastic and easy this recipe is, I would like to again emphasize on good quality yeast you would need to get great results. I can very well relate to your woes if you are in India and have attempted baking bread with chuck-in-the-bin quality yeast. Beg someone coming from the US, borrow good yeast from a neighbor, but do try baking with yeast. While on the topic, General Additives and IBCA do courier yeast and their other supplies to you within India. More about this coming up shortly!

Watch this video on Yeast types and how to use yeast. 

You can find Champa's recipe here. Again, you could maintain the basic recipe and use any savory flavoring of your choice. Mint, cumin, spring onions, finely chopped colored capsicum, grated fresh coconut, dill, garlic, parsley and so on.

This quantity of batter made 16 mini buns.

Ingredients:  
Instant yeast ( you could also use Active Dry Yeast) - 2 1/4 tsp ( I have used Gloripan)

Water - 240 ml / 1 cup warm
Sugar - 1 TBSP
Salt - heaping 1 teaspoon (had earlier mentioned as 3/4 teaspoon which felt less salty)
Yogurt - 4 TBSP or 1/4 cup
Olive Oil - 2 TBSP
All purpose flour - 292 grams / 2 1/4 cup ( weight typo fixed here!)

Onions - 1/2 cup, chopped fine

Green Chillies - 2 chopped fine (Or you could use about 1 tsp of red chilli flakes)

Fresh Coriander- Chopped about 1 TBSP

Grated carrot -  1/4 cup

Procedure: In a bowl, take the instant yeast and sugar. Add the warm water. (If you would be using Active Dry Yeast, you would need to leave it for about 10 minutes till frothy). Add oil, salt and yogurt. Add in the flour slowly. Stir with a wooden spoon gently. When all the flour has been stirred in, add the onion, chopped chillies, fresh coriander and grated carrot. Stir again to mix. The dough will be very very sticky. At this point, you could transfer the dough to a suitable bowl or Dough Rising Bucket. This is a great way to correctly check if your dough has doubled. 

Watch the video here 

 Mine took about 45 minutes to double. Note down this time, will help. 

In the meantime, grease your muffin tray(s). If your tray is not non-stick, it will be good to grease the entire surface of the tray-top. My buns got stuck to the edges of the cups and I had to coax them out with a spoon. 

Once the dough doubles, stir the dough once with a wooden spoon and divide the dough to fit in the cups. I oiled my hands to do this. If you would be using muffin trays with 6 small cups, you will not use up all the dough with just 2 trays. I had some batter left over which I refrigerated and used later. I filled the cups halfway. Keep the trays in a warm place and let the dough rise till it comes to the rim of the cups, not higher as the batter will begin to kind of slump as it rises giving you slighter tougher buns. 

Mine again took about 35 - 40 minutes. Towards the end of the second rise, pre-heat oven to 205 degrees C / 400 F (375 F / 190degrees C if using a dark colored pan). Bake for 15 minutes. You would need to bake for 5 minutes longer if baking at a lower temperature says Champa. The buns do not get a very dark color, do not over bake. Cool in the baking pan for 5 minutes and then cool on the rack completely.

Now people! Allow me to present another small but already extremely important kitchen gadget of mine. My shining new Instant Read Thermometer !! Yes, for those of us getting introduced to this wonderful gadget, it helps test the bread for done-ness. So that you can know when the bread is perfectly baked, no risk of under or over-baking due to crust color, voltage fluctuations, temperament of your moody oven etc!! Isn't this awesome? The internal temperature of bread needs to be between 200F and 210 F and you know your bread is baked. Yes, add this to your list of things to get from the US!

I packed a couple of buns with hubby's lunch as they were tasting so good fresh off the rack. They were great eaten as is and will go very well with your coffee or in your kids' snack box.  You could also serve them with soup.

   
But then, don't take my word for this, try them out for your self and tell me how you liked them. This recipe is going to be on my favorites to be baked again and again.

If you are new to baking breads, do read the below posts for better success rates!.

Basics About Yeast Breads
These buns go to Champa's Bake - Off. She is also hosting the Bread Baking Day #37 this month and the theme is bread made with pre-ferment. Am so looking forward to participate and learn something new!

The Spicy buns are also being Yeast-Spotted