• I recommend reading the blog post before the recipe, there is some different steps here that may feel confusing, but are explained in the post. Happy Baking!

Pre-ferment

• Mix the pre-ferment of sourdough starter, flour, and water up 8-24 hours before you want to bake. The longer beforehand, the more sour your end product will be. If I plan to mix the dough in the morning, I make it before bed. Cover with plastic wrap or a plastic bag and let sit on the counter.

To Make the Dough

• Melt butter, honey, and salt on low in a saucepan. When it's melted and combined, turn off the heat, add your milk, and stir to combine. With a thermometer or your finger, test the temperature of the mixture. By thermometer, it should be no more than 105F. By your finger...you should be able to comfortably hold it in for 10 seconds. If it's not this warm, turn the heat back on to warm it. If I use a heavy bottom pot, there is enough residual heat to heat the milk, if I use something like a thin enamel pot, there isn't.
• Add the warm liquid to your mixer (or bowl you plan to mix the dough in) and add your pre-ferment.
• Stir to combine; it's not going to combine super well until you start adding flour.
• Add your flour, starting on the low end, and mix the dough, adding more flour as needed just until it's combined, but not a cohesive, nice dough.
• Let sit 15-30 minutes, then knead the dough.
• This dough takes more kneading than most; my mixer kneads on low for 10 minutes, so if kneading by hand, you're going to knead about 10-15 minutes.
• If the dough sticks to the bowl or your hands, add a little more flour, but try not to add too much. It's not a stiff dough, it's on the softer side. Try wetting your hands/counter for kneading if it's sticking and you've already added a lot more flour.

Bake in One Day Method

• Cover your dough with plastic wrap or a plastic bag and let rise 2-3 hours until it looks like it's kind of doubled (don't overthink it, as long as it's 1.5x its original size).

Overnight Method (see notes)

• Cover your dough with plastic wrap or a plastic bag and let sit overnight. It will be gigantic and beautiful in the morning.

For Either Method: Continue as Below

• Punch your dough down, give it a few kneads. Yes, you are letting it rise twice before shaping. For more on this, read the blog post above the recipe card.
• Cover with plastic wrap or a plastic bag and let sit 2-3 hours until it's doubled. To test if your dough has doubled, dip your finger in flour and poke the dough. If the dough bounces back- it's got more to give and needs to keep rising. If the dough stays indented, it's given all it has to give and you can proceed.

To Shape Rolls

• Punch down the dough, dump it onto a lightly floured counter, flatten our into a roughly 10" x 6" rectangle.
• Use your knife, a bench scraper, whatever you have, to cut into 24 equal portions.
• Shape the buns however you want, personally I prefer to choose the smoothest looking side up, and tuck the sides down under, pinching them together to make a cute little dough ball. Put the ball dough side down on a greased or lined pan.
• If you want pull apart buns, put the dinner buns in a 9×13 pan; they will pretty much be touching. If you want stand alone buns use a cookie sheet and space them farther.
• Cover and let rise 2-3 hours. If your house is REALLY cold, like below 60F/15C, turn your oven on for a minute or two. Tuck a cast iron pan in first to help retain heat. Turn oven off and put covered bread into oven.
• When it's doubled (don't forget to take buns out if they're in there!) preheat oven to 375F.
• Bake for 15 minutes, check internal temperature with an instant read thermometer – this is the best way to know when your buns are done, because you may have them a different size than mine and sourdough bakes longer than yeasted…underbaking is a very common problem. They should be 190F-200F. If not, put in for another 5 minutes.
• When the buns are done, take from the oven, brush tops of them with melted butter or just rub a stick of butter all over the tops. While this is optional, it really helps you have soft buns!