Homemade buns are the perfect fix for morning breakfast. Bake them over the weekend and enjoy it over the week. It is healthier to commercial made ones. You can also use the same dough for pizza base or just make buns from left over pizza base. Bread buns make breakfast so easy. Soft dinner rolls taste great with soup. Have it with with some butter or with some curry/pav bhaji or make a kutchi dabheli.
I love buttered buns with some strawberry preserve or spicy marmalade. Just like Paddington. You can also add some spices and herbs to give it an amazing flavour as per your choice. If you like your traditional Bombay twist, enjoy the pav recipe with some fried bonda in between as vada pav. Perfect for a train journey or a picnic.
Homemade buns are easy to make. These homemade rolls are fluffy soft bread and once you make your own you will fall in love with it again & again. You can make your variations of dinner buns by adding some sesame seeds, or chia seeds. You can also experiment with flours. There is no smell better than freshly baked bread.
Enjoy it as bun maska, pav bhaji, misal and as pav, usal the Marathi way. Enjoy it as pav gathia if u like the Gujarati twist. Homemade pav recipe increases your love of these appetizers. Alternatively, you can enjoy these with classic blueberry or strawberry jam/orange marmalade. Just enjoy with a good tall glass of 'masala chai' / tea.
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Ingredients
- flour (plain flour or wholewheat flour)
- yeast in warm water and sugar
- oil
- water to knead the dough
- salt
Refer to recipe card for details.
Homemade buns recipe
Equipment
- oven
- or air-fryer
- Stand mixer for kneading (optional)
Ingredients
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup warm water use ¼ cup for yeast and rest with flour
- 2 teaspoon yeast
- 2 cup plain flour you may use wholemeal flour if you like. refer notes below
- 3 tablespoon oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Add sugar to lukewarm water, mix until it dissolves. Add yeast to sugar water, so that it activates. This will make the mix frothy and activate in 15 minutes.
- Add this yeast mix to the flour with salt.
- Start mixing the dough while adding the remaining water.The dough needs to be a little wet and sticky but smooth, this will help the buns to rise and come out with a soft texture.
- Knead the dough, this will be sticky at the start, Add oil to remaining ingredients. Keep it aside for 30 minutes to rise.
- Once it has doubled, punch it down and knead it again.
- Divide the flour in 9/16 equal portions, give them a round shape using oiled hands,and arrange them in an oiled baking tray with some space in between the buns.
- Let it rest for 30 minutes. You will see the dough rise and sides might touch each other.
How to make pav in oven?
- Preheat the oven at 180 degrees(fan forced) for 10 minutes.
- Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees. Check the readiness, by knocking on the top of the buns, if they sound hollow then they are ready.
- Take out the tray and brush the buns with butter/oil.
- Let is rest for an hour so that it cools down.
How to make pav in air fryer?
- Follow the same steps to make the dough as above. Make round balls of same size, set it in a baking tray to rise
- Once risen(after 30 minutes), bake in a preheated air fryer at 180C (bake/roast option) for 15 minutes or until it sounds hollow when you tap it on the top.
- Brush with the butter/milk mixture at the end and allow them to cool completely.
- Serve fresh with butter /fruit preserve/jam.
Notes
How to increase fiber in your bread ?
There are a number of ways that can help increase the fiber content in buns or bread.
1.Use fiber rich flour such as whole-wheat flour/atta. In this case you may need to increase the quantity of yeast by 20% and use a bit more water/oil as this flour is a bit heaver than plain flour.
2. Add additional additives such as flax seed meal . 1 cup of plain flour contains around 3.4 gms of fiber compared to 11 gms in 1 cup of whole meal flour. 1 tbsp. of flax seeds contains around 2 gms of fiber. So an addition of 3 tbsp. of flax seeds to plain flour can help you get similar fiber content as whole meal flour.
3.Use a combination of above 2 as done.
How to get golden brown buns ? how to make a pav? Perfect tip.
One thing I have noted in most bakery is that they use an egg wash to get that shiny top for buns, croissant or bread. However to get similar results without the use of egg, you may mix 1 tbsp. melted butter with 1 tbsp. warm milk and use this mix to brush the buns when they are ready and keep them in the hot oven for 2 minutes or more.
Related links
how to make pao at home?
- Add sugar to lukewarm water, mix until it dissolves. Add yeast to sugar water, so that it activates.
2. This will make the mix frothy and activate in 15 minutes.
3. Add this yeast mix with flour ,water and salt mix
4. Add oil to the mix
5. Start mixing the dough while adding the remaining water. Bread dough needs to be a little wet and sticky but smooth.
6. Keep it aside for 30 minutes to rise.
7. Once it has doubled, punch it down and knead it again.Divide the flour in equal portions, give them a round shape using oiled hand .Make round balls of same size, set it in a baking tray to rise
8. Once risen(after 30 minutes), bake in a preheated oven at 180C(fan forced) for 17-18 minutes.
8. Check the readiness, by knocking on the top of the buns, if they sound hollow then they are ready. Brush with melted butter and milk at the end and allow them to further cook for a 1-2 minutes to get that extra brown top.
Variation - with addition of flax seeds
You ma choose to add flax seeds
Variation - How to make eggless buns in air fryer ?
Read our detailed recipe on making air fryer buns here.
1.Make round balls of same size, set it in a baking tray to rise
2. Once risen(after 30 minutes), bake in a preheated air fryer at 180C (bake/roast option) for 15 minutes or until it sounds hollow when you tap it on the top.
3.Brush with the butter/milk mixture at the end and allow them to cool completely.
Variations
You can make variations of this bread recipe with tutti frutti if you like it sweet. You can also add some spices to make your own masala buns. You can stuff it to make bread roll or serve it as vada pav.
FAQs
It looks tight and tough so it will not stretch after baking.
It should spring back when pressed.
It should have a hollow sound when you strike it with a thumb at the bottom.
Apart from milk and water mixture, you can also brush butter or eggwash.
If your oven is too hot, you might end up with undercooked bread. It can also be raw, if you do not bake it long enough and wait for hollow sound.
You can use the above recipe for whole wheat pav recipe instead of making plain buns recipe. The whole wheat pav or atta pav will require little more water to get a softer dough. To make it more softer, you can add little(2 tablespoons) oil in place of water.
remus says
do you think dough should be sticky and wet?