Honey Ginger and Jasmine Rice Milk Bread Buns

Benny's milk bread and trying to make hamburger buns are two bakes that have been on my list for quite a while.  I've also been wanting to do another round of my Honey Ginger and Jasmine Rice bread.  This weekend I tackled all three at once and used this bake as the basis, but I went with Active Dry Yeast (ADY) instead of sourdough.

Makes twelve buns big enough to easily handle a 1/2 pound hamburger patty (as a size estimate)...

Biga
130g   Bread Flour
84.5g  Water
0.3g    ADY
Combine until all flour wetted and ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours

Porridge
65g    Jasmine Rice
32.5g Honey
13g    Fresh Ginger Root (minced)
97.5g Water
97.5g Whole Milk
Combine water and rice.  Simmer in covered pot until water absorbed.  Add honey, ginger, and milk.  Continue simmering in covered pot stirring regularly until milk absorbed.  Rice needs to be soft.  If still firm, add another 13g whole milk.  Keep doing small milk additions until rice is soft.  Let sit in covered pot until fully cooled.

Final Dough
357.5g    All Purpose Flour
130g       Bread Flour
32.5g      Semolina Rimacinata (Janie's Mill Sifted Durum)
195g       Whole Milk
13g         Sea Salt
6.2g        ADY
84.5g      Butter (Room Temp (soft))
84.5g      Egg (beaten)

1)    Make biga and porridge the night before the bake
2)    Combine milk and ADY.  Let sit for 10 minutes.
3)    Combine milk/ADY, flours, salt, egg, and biga,  Use pinching and squeezing to fully combine ingredients.  Rest for 10 minutes.
4)    Smash cooled porridge with fork, potato masher, or other means to assure there are no full grains of rice (want to minimize large pieces of whole grain in the soft buns).  Combine dough and porridge using pinching and squeezing.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Add butter in small amounts using pinching and squeezing to fully mix.  Rest 10 minutes when all butter added. Will need to adjust hydration at this point depending on how much moisture was retained in the porridge.
5)    4 sets of bowl kneading to develop gluten.  Dough will be pretty shaggy for first set and will start to develop on the second set.
6)    Bulk ferment until dough doubles (75-76 deg F)
7)    Divide dough into twelve 120g portions.  Degas and preshape into loose rounds.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Shape into tight rounds using bench scraper and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
8)    Cover dough and let rise at room temp (73-74 deg F) for 1 hour
9)    Preheat oven at 350 deg F.  After final proof, apply egg wash to buns and bake at 350 deg F on center oven rack for 30 minutes (until golden brown).
10)  Fully cool before slicing....  If you can wait that long.  :-)

These turned out GREAT!  Nice and soft with a wonderful blend of jasmine rice and ginger aroma.  I'd still like a bit more ginger in it, but I think that's a bit of a personal preference.