fresh out of the oven

I'm so excited! This is the first time for me to make bread using yeast. Sure, I've made quick breads which had all the ingredients in their mixes and all I had to do was add water.

Making bread with yeast was a bit of a challenge, since I'd never used it before. Add to that, all the instructions were in Japanese. I followed the recipe that the packaged yeast came with to make butter rolls.

I've got to say that kneading the dough is quite fun! I used my surrounding elements--the heat and humidity to let the dough rise. An hour later was what the instructions called "the finger test"--sticking my finger in the middle to see if the dough was ready. Since the dough didn't bounce back up--it was ready!

Next was to press out the air and divide the dough into 12 pieces. Then let the pieces rest for 10 minutes, they called this "bench time". Then I rolled the pieces out and formed the rolls. Another 40 minutes and the rolls doubled in size and were ready to bake. I brushed each one with an egg wash and into the oven they went.

13 minutes later....mmm, delicious!

Now to clean up the mess in the kitchen.