These delicious Garlic Buns are topped are soft and chewy and topped with melted butter and your favourite seasoning.
First of all – you make them with warm milk instead of water. That gives you a softer crumb. So these rolls are fairly dense but soft and kinda melt-in-your-mouth.
You can make them with the dough cycle of your bread machine or with a mixer and dough hook. You could also knead lightly if you want to go totally manual.
The part I like the best is when you take them out of the oven, you brush them with melted butter and whatever spice blend you like. The garlic in the actual bun is very mild. If you really want to accentuate the garlic add 1/4 tsp of garlic powder to your melted butter topping.
I used Thai Coconut seasoning on them to go with this delicious Thai Shrimp Bisque. I thought that was a real flash of inspiration.
Think about it… you could use an Italian pre-mixed herb blend to complement an Italian dish, Herbs de Provence for some French flair, Cajun spices to go with this Jambalaya or some other New Orleans type of dish.
You could also use any finely chopped fresh herbs like dill or tarragon or basil. The possibilities are endless. You can add some garlic powder to the melted butter to up the garlic factor.
This recipe makes 12 substantial size buns. They are perfect to go with a bowl of soup or even to fill with sandwich meat or fillings.
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 cup 2% milk warmed about 1 minute on medium in microwave
- 3 tsps instant rise yeast
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp each, dried parsley, basil, thyme Herbs of your choice (optional)
- 4 cups all purpose flour
Garlic Butter Glaze
- 1 Tbsp butter melted
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp dried parsley or spice mix of your choice.
Instructions
- Combine the warm milk and yeast in a small bowl and allow it to sit 5-10 minutes until it becomes frothy.
- Mix flour, salt and dried herbs, if using, in a separate bowl.
- Mixer Method - When milk and yeast are frothy, transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the butter, sugar, eggs and garlic powder and beat until eggs are mixed and butter forms small bits. Add the dry ingredients and continue to mix with a dough hook until the dough is smooth but slightly sticky. Transfer dough to an oiled bowl. Turn dough so it gets oiled on all sides. Cover and allow to rise 60 + minutes in a warm place until dough has doubled in size.
- Bread machine method: When milk and yeast are frothy, transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl. Add the butter, sugar, eggs and garlic powder and beat until eggs are mixed and butter forms small bits. Transfer liquid to bread machine. Top with dry mixture. Set bread machine to dough cycle. Note: this is slightly different from normally recommended method where all liquid goes in first, followed by dry and topped with yeast. Check your machine after it has finished the 2nd knead to make sure the dough is uniformly moist. ( I had to stir my dough a bit to get it stickier). Allow dough to rise according to dough cycle.
- Spray a 9 X 13" oven proof dish with cooking spray. Divide dough into 12 equal portions. Turn sides under to get a rounded smooth top to the buns. Place dough balls evenly around the pan. Cover and allow buns to double again - about 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Bake buns 25-32 minutes. If you pan is metal they will cook faster. I used a ceramic dish and it took the full 32 minutes.
- For the topping, melt the butter and add whatever spice mix and herbs you are using. Brush the tops of the buns with the butter mixture immediately after removing buns from the oven.