On Making Billie's Bun Recipe

... the initial look ...
... flour just barely  incorporated into wet ingredients ...

On the food blog I posted a recipe that Billie Bates gave to me.

Forty years later, I would have no idea of how many times I have put the ingredients in that recipe together.

She taught me how to do the dough by hand -- so I must not have had my electric mixer yet.

I did the recipe on two separate days this week.

The first was for the party at Marcia's house.

Amir asked me how I got the goodness in the buns.


I had to tell him that 3/4 of sugar, 1/2 cup of butter and 8 eggs in the dough helped a lot.

... after a couple of minutes of mixing,
the dough hook has cleaned the sides of the bowl ...

The camera does a good job at catching the look of the dough at the right consistency. 

After incorporating the wet and dry ingredients, and 30 seconds to a minute or more of beating the dough, the ingredients pull away from the side of the bowl. 

That is when I know I have the right amount of flour in the mix. 

I am always testing for "softness" with my finger. I don't want to get too much flour incorporated -- that will make the dough too stiff and I won't get the same product. 

The bowl I use is just a little too small for the recipe. 

5 across, 7 down

What happens is the dough spins around and then climbs the inner spindle, until it climbs right to the top, swinging erratically on top, but not enough to make my machine walk itself off of the counter. 

I haven't take the time to cut back on the ingredients. 

 I just watch carefully for the five minutes it will take to come to a place where it is ready to drop out of the bowl and into a slightly warm metal bowl where it will rise.

... the dough rests in the bowl ...
you can tell how soft it is.
I have taken the little pieces left in the bowl
after I got the dough out,
and just thrown them on top.
The pieces  just flatten out and incorporate themselves.

 
I was poking around with this, seeing if I could produce a picture that would let people know how soft the dough should be. 

 So here it is, waiting to rise. Billie used to have me wait 3 hours before I rolled it into buns. 

Now I find a very warm place in the kitchen and this round, the dough was already spilling over the sides of the pan before I got back to it in two hours. 

Those who ate the product wouldn't have known. 

... in 2 hours, dough begins to spill over the pan ...

I just took the dough that was curving over the sides of the bowl, slipped it back on top, did not punch it down, but went right to rolling the buns. 

The guys who live here ate all they wanted. 

The next day they didn't eat any. 

... close up of texture of risen dough ... very airy ...

One is not enough, they say, and five is too many. 

At least 5 is too many if one is counting calories.

Arta