Baking Buns 911

[Psychoicy]

I have never baked before and I want to make flavoured buns with seeds as my end result.  I am taking small step at a time, and for now I just want to bake regular dinner roll/buns.

Is there any good online resource for learning how to bake bread, bun, dinner rolls?  I don't know what a successfully proofed yeast solution thing looks like.  My first dough did not successfully rise and crumpled.  Did this happen because I am using a gluten free flour? Or was it my yeast?

[Forum Team]

Not to sure about the why's but there is and awesome book that a bunch of bloggers are working their way through.  The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart...

[The Crispy Cook]

Gluten-free baking is a whole different process than regular wheat flour baking because of all the great things that wheat gluten does for structure, crumb, ingredient mixing, etc.  My last post on the Crispy Cook is actually a few tips about baking buns using gluten-free ingredients, so you may want to check it out.  I have found out that using greased, floured egg rings actually keeps the soft gluten-free bun dough from spreading out during baking and you get a nice, high bun.

[OldSageHand]

Just curious about the egg-ring thingy. Would it not also work using tinfoil molds or metal muffin pans? What's the difference? is it the type of metal? enclosure? I'm just curious and love to try unconventional methods...

[The Crispy Cook]

Baking is not my forte, and Gluten Free Baking is a throw of the dice too, frankly, with my Un Mad Baking Skillz, but I have done the GF bun thing over and over because that is what my wheatless husband craves most.

What works for me in breaking down the soft and sticky GF bread doughs into buns is to lay down parchment on a baking sheet, then plop my divided dough into the greased, floured (white rice flour) egg rings.  They don't stick to the bottom of the cookie sheet (we've had to gnaw off paper baking cup liners when I've tried various GF muffin and cupcake recipes, so the muffin pans don't appeal to me for buns).  One could certainly use homemade rings out of aluminum foil and we've done so when I have baked two batches of buns at once and ran out of egg rings.  Just be sure to grease and flour them.  That GF dough is really sticky and soft and if it contains xanthan gum, it will grip everything in its path like kudzu.

The egg rings I bought at my local restaurant supply house are of a very soft, bendable metal, and are probably of aluminum themselves.