Basic Bread Rolls

While I was in Japan a week ago, my friend Vicki and I became obsessed with curry-pan, a Japanese savory pastry. It's deep fried, chewy, with curry in the middle. Yum?! When we returned from our trip, we decided that we will make home made curry-pan. Except, I've never really baked bread before.

Thus, my bread adventure begins.

This first recipe is the dough that is used for curry-pan, except I've made little rolls instead (safer to take little steps!). I've made this twice, once using the bread machine and the second time by hand. Honestly, there really was no difference in quality or texture...so the bread machine wins! Less labor for sure. Also, according to the recipe that I followed (via http://cookpad.com/recipe/588063 ) it says to add butter after you've kneaded the dough for some time. This got SO messy when I did it by hand! In the bread machine, I just put the butter in with the milk at the beginning and it turned out just the same...so I have altered the recipe a bit, but here it is. (Sorry for the grams!)

Basic Bread Rolls

ingredients:
200 grams bread flour
10 grams sugar
4 grams salt
4 grams rapid-rise yeast
50 grams milk
80 grams water
10 grams unsalted butter, room temperature

Instructions:
1. In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients.
2. Heat milk in microwave for 15 seconds and combine with water and butter (80-90 degrees F).
3. Pour milk mixture into bowl of dry ingredients and stir until it forms into a ball.
4. Take the dough out of the bowl and kneed on a surface for 5 minutes.
5. Form a ball and place dough in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. Then place that bowl in a larger bowl containing warm water (about 90 degrees F). Let rest for 1 hour.
8. Remove dough from bowl and punch out the air on a work surface. Cut the dough into 12 pieces using a scraper.
9. Form each piece of dough into a ball and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.
10. Flatten the balls to remove excess air and reform into round balls.
11. Place damp cloth over the dough and let rest for 1 hour.
12. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake bread for 10 min. or until top is golden brown.