For 32 buns of the type above:
- 50 g fresh yeast (or 14g dried yeast)
- 150-200 g butter
- 5 dl milk
- 1 g saffron (I believe a little more (~1.25g) could be good, but haven't tried)
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 dl sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1½ l flour
- raisins (optional)
- oven: 200-250 deg C
--
- Melt the butter, add the milk, stir, and heat to 37 deg C (this is for fresh yeast; I've read that the temperature should be a little higher for dried yeast, uncertain how much higher).
- Add the yeast and saffron (grind the saffron into a powder first if necessary; adding 1-2 tsp sugar to it makes grinding easier) and stir.
- Add salt and 1 egg, and mix.
- Add the sugar and flour. Mix very thoroughly (preferably using a mixer of some kind). You can add a bit more flour if the dough is very sticky.
- Cover by a thin layer of flour, cover by a light towel, and leave to rise for ~40 min (this should bring it to double size, if the yeast is good enough).
- Knead the dough until it can be worked easily, adding flour as necessary.
- Shape the dough into whatever shapes you'd like. The traditional type are the S-shaped buns (split the dough into 32 pieces by fist cutting it in half with a large knife, then repeating four times; shape each small piece of dough into a long cylinder, and roll into an S shape), but a much easier version is to simply shape the dough into a few loaves (after baking, they can then later easily be sliced).
- Put the buns (or loaves or whatever) on one or several oven plate(s) (with baking paper), cover with a light towel, and leave to rise for 20-40 min.
- Mix the two remaining eggs and coat the buns/loaves/whatever with the eggs using a brush. Add raisins if desirable.
- Bake small buns in the middle of the oven, and larger pieces in the bottom of the oven. The small S-shaped buns should be baked for 5-10 min at 225-250 deg C, while the larger pieces need lower temperature (down to ~200 deg or so I believe) and longer baking times (~20 min I believe). You'll need to observe and adjust a bit (watch out though - especially the small buns can get burnt easily).