{Day 2} Early Morning Deliciousness - Overnight Breakfast Buns

Yesterday I stressed over which bread I should make for today's post. I wanted something easy because Thursdays are crazy busy for me and I knew that I'd also have to have time to write this post. :) I thought doing something overnight that could bake first thing in the morning would be best. So, looking through my list of breads, I found the Overnight Breakfast Buns from Company's Coming! Perfect!

These are NOT as easy as they sound! Especially if you forget that you're supposed to start them on time and are then forced to start them right when you're busy preparing and eating dinner ... with your family. Yeah, timing is not my thing. :)

You prepare the dough the night before and bake first thing in the morning. When I got into the kitchen this morning, the smell of the dough was amazing. When I was a little girl, there were a couple old Mennonite women who'd regularly make fresh bread and buns. They would give us some of these buns to take home or to eat while we were at their houses. When I walked into my kitchen this morning my first thought was, "It smells like Nellie Dyck's house!" (She was one of those women.) ... And the buns remind me of the buns she made! This is a good thing!! :)

So, this is NOT my own recipe, as I mentioned earlier. And I don't think I will ever actually adapt the recipe (except to maybe give clearer instructions) as it's a pretty awesome bun the way it's written! :) So this can be found in the Company's Coming Breads book (written by Jean Pare), page 62. I've included the recipe here and added my helpful hints in italics.

Overnight Breakfast Buns

Ingredients:

Granulated Sugar                                       1 tsp

Warm water                                                ¼ cup

Active dry yeast                                         1 x ¼ oz (8g)

Boiling Water                                             2 ¾ cups

Granulated Sugar                                       1 cup

Butter or hard margarine                            ½ cup

Salt                                                             1 tbsp

All-purpose flour, approximately               8 cups

Directions:

Begin at 5:00 p.m. stir first amount of sugar in warm water in small bowl. Sprinkle yeast over top. Let stand 10 minutes. Stir to dissolve.

(While that is waiting do the next step … this is where the instructions could have been more clear for my tired, pregnancy addled mind as I started the next step when the 10 minutes were almost done and was in a bit of a fix trying to rush the water in the next step to a lukewarm temperature. :) )

Pour boiling water into large bowl. Stir in second amount of sugar, butter and salt until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted. (It should also have said that it would be better if butter was softened or it won’t melt very well). Cool to lukewarm. (You may need to put it in the fridge to speed up this process if the yeast is almost done resting.) Add yeast mixture.

Beat in about ¼ of the flour. Work in enough remaining flour until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. (It is helpful to use your stand mixer for this, with a dough hook, though you will have to probably finish it by hand to make sure all your flour gets mixed in. I ended up using just 7 ½ cups of flour instead of the full 8.) Place in greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover with a tea towel. Let stand on counter until 7:00 p.m. Punch dough down. Cover with tea towel. Let stand on counter until 10:00 p.m. Punch dough down. Divide into 36 egg-size pieces. Shape into buns. Arrange on greased baking sheets. Cover with tea towel. Let stand on kitchen counter until morning. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 Celsius) for 15 to 20 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

As in the photo that started this post, these buns are delicious served warm with butter and jam ... and coffee on the side. In fact, coffee tastes amazing when accompanying these buns! Coffee served in my favourite Wendy Binks mug of course (she's an amazing gifted author and artist from Western Australia - google her!). :)

I bet you all want to see some more photos though, don't you?! :) Ok, I can oblige! :)

This is the dough after the last rising and before I punched it down prior to forming the buns.

One sheet of buns ready to rise through the night (I got 2 baking sheets full of buns!) :)

YUM! Fresh from the oven! :)

My Rainbow Dash loving 4 year old enjoying her second bun of the morning! :)

And my sweet almost 2 year old enjoying her bun with jam. :)

Oh, and I had to throw in this picture of beautiful flowers that my awesome husband bought me this week! :)