101RECIPES: Coffee Buns

A coffee as delicious as bread is also delicious with bread! Together, they make the perfect couple, ready to welcome sweet and savoury alike: coffee buns are ideal for combinations of unusual but familiar flavors, just like their ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

• 500g of rye flour
• 500g of 00 white flour (soft wheat)
• 300 ml of coffee (i.e. 6 espresso cups) 
• 400 ml of water (i.e. 2 glasses)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 25 g of brewer’s yeast
• 2 tablespoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

METHOD

To make your coffee buns, first make the coffee and leave it to cool to room temperature.
In the meantime, start to prepare the dough: place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl – the flour, the yeast and the sugar – and mix them all together. Now, crumble the brewer’s yeast into the bowl and add the room temperature water, adding it a little at a time while mixing. Following the water, add the oil, continuing to mix, then the salt and then the coffee. Stir a little more with the spoon and then knead the mixture with your hands for 15 minutes until obtaining a soft ball. Now, it’s time for your coffee bun dough to rise, which takes place in two stages. Cover the bowl containing the ball-shaped dough with a cloth and place it somewhere away from light sources at room temperature for two hours. After the first two hours, place the coffee bun dough on a pastry board and knead it with your hands for a few minutes. Now you can create the buns, shaping them as you wish. Note that each bun must weigh approximately 150 grams.
Place your coffee buns on a baking tray, brush with olive oil and allow to prove for 1 hour.
After one hour of proving, sprinkle with a little white flour (using a sieve) and place in the oven (preheated to 190°) for 30-40 minutes. Your coffee buns will be cooked when they are golden on the surface; at this point remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.
Try serving them as an aperitif with Tuscan raw ham or as a dessert with a bitter orange marmalade. But they also make an excellent snack and a wonderful breakfast just the way they are, perhaps lightly toasted, with one of your favourite accompaniments. Use your imagination and…choose your own particular flavour!