I enjoyed eating this so much, no regrets spending 2 days on it. It tasted like butter flavour cotton candy, better than most I’ve had outside.

But it’s really not easy, not only because of the constant challenge of melting butter but also the high hydration that already requires longer kneading time. Suggest that you have some experience with bread making. Here are some tips and many others in the method below.

• Use a good butter
• Use bread flour that can absorb more liquid
• Keep apparatus cold as much as you can, use ice packs around mixing bowl, underneath kneading mat or chuck the bowl into the fridge if dough is weeping oil. Otherwise, if the dough temp rises too high, not only will the butter separate, the bread will also have a sour alcohol taste.
• Use silicone spatula which will help a lot when handling the dough.
• The times here are for tropical country, do not exceed them or butter will melt. If you live in a cold temperate country, proofing times will be longer.

Recipe (make 8 buns in 8″ by 5″ loaf pan)

• 125g eggs ( about 2.5 medium eggs, beat and measure out using weighing scale)
• 60g milk
• 35g sugar
• 1 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 250g bread flour
• 1 tsp yeast
• 125g unsalted butter

Method

1. Mix eggs, milk, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Use hand whisk to mix well.

2. Add flour and use a spatula to mix to a rough dough. Cover and leave to autolyse for 20 min in the fridge. After 20 min, add the yeast.

3. In stand mixer, knead from low to higher speed. Scrape down sides every now and then. Dough is very wet and sticky. Knead till a thick window pane. This will take about 15 min of start and stop kneading. Put ice packs around mixing bowl to keep the dough cool.

When testing for window panes, wet your hand first to avoid sticking and pull gently.

4. When you get a reasonable window pane, add cubed butter, cold from the fridge.

5. Once again, knead from low speed first. Continue to keep dough cool with ice packs around mixing bowl. Start and stop kneading every few minutes to keep dough cool and scrape down sides. If dough gets very oily, you can place mixing bowl into fridge for 5 to 10 mins.

You can tell dough has more strength when it can climb up dough hook and bottom bowl is clean.

I hand kneaded at the last part till a smooth elastic dough with window pane.

Picture below shows how I use silicone spatula to do stretch and fold.

6. Place this in a mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap and proof for 90 min on counter top.

7. After 90 min, it will double in size. Overturn onto counter top, punch down and do stretch and fold all round.

8. Place back into bowl, clingwrap and chill for 12-15 hours in fridge. Or overnight.

9. Next day, work quickly to deflate dough and divide into 8 equal pieces and roll round. You can add chocolate chips here if you like. Work quickly as butter will start to melt as your warm palms handle the dough. So do not take too long to roll the dough round.

10. Cover and rest 20 min.

11. After 20 min, roll round once more and pinch the bottom tight. The two step rolling ensures finer crumb. Place into baking tin and proof for 1 hour.

12. After 1 hour, eggwash gently.

13. Bake at 180 deg C for 40 min. Tent if top gets too brown.

14. You can also bake the same recipe in two 8″ by 4″ pan. Shape as preferred, bake at 180 deg C for 30 to 35 min. Below are the 2 smaller loaves.