Sweet or Savory Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free and Egg-Free Buns

I love a good bun with a bowl of soup.

I’ve been making this bun recipe since the early days of Pete’s celiac diagnosis. It’s fast, easy, and one that Pete and I both love.

The other day Callum and I were grocery shopping and he pointed at some buns and told me he wanted to buy them. The cart almost rolled on over and picked up a package. But nope! I told him we could make them, and make them we did!

He loved them. Thank goodness.

This bun recipe can be made a number of ways – I’ll touch on two ways in this post (see savory and sweet modifications below recipe). I’ve played with it over the years, and it’s pretty foolproof. So try it out and then play with it yourself.

I find they’re not very yummy or flavorful plain, so we always try to dress them up some how. But it’s a fast and easy way to have freshly baked gluten-free buns with a bowl of soup or some pasta. Enjoy!

Sweet or Savory Buns

1 ¼ cups of hot water

2 ¼ teaspoons (t) active dry yeast

¾ cup of eggs (3 large eggs will do it)

(see vegan/egg-free modification below)

3 tablespoons oil (I like to use sunflower oil or liquefied coconut oil)

3 T of agave/honey/maple syrup

1 ½ cups garfava flour (I also use quinoa or sorghum flour)

1/2 cup potato starch

2/3 cup tapioca flour

1/3 cup brown rice flour (or millet flour)

1 T xanthum gum or guar gum

1 1/2 t salt

Grease a muffin pan – this recipe makes 1 dozen buns. I use coconut or sunflower oil for greasing.

Add yeast to hot water and let sit for 5 minutes while the yeast kicks into action. Add eggs, oil, and agave (see below for vegan modification). Stir to combine.

Mix the dry ingredients well and gradually add to the wet ingredients. Mix on medium speed for 5 minutes until all ingredients are well mixed. The mixture will be very gooey and messy.

Spoon into muffin cups and let rise for 30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Makes one dozen.

Vegan/Egg-Free Modification

Instead of 3 eggs put 5 tbsp of ground flax in a liquid measuring cup.  Fill the cup with warm water until the 3/4 cup mark (flax is already in the cup).  The flax and water combined should make no more than 3/4 cups.  Add to the yeast-water mixture along with oil and agave.

SAVORY MODIFICATION

These were AMAZING!!! You’d never know they were GF!

I mixed ½ cup of finely sliced green onions with 1 cup of goat cheddar (daiya works well too) and 1 tsp of chipotle sauce. I added this (by hand) after the 5 minutes was up. I sprinkled more cheese on the top just prior to putting them in the oven. Soooo good.

SWEET MODIFICATION

These are really yummy too. It’s the closest we’ve gotten to a delish cinnamon bun.

To add to dough:

In a small bowl, combine 3 tsp of cinnamon with 1/3 cup of sucanat (or cane sugar or brown sugar).  Add this to the dough at the end of the five minute mixing time (by hand).

Topping:

Melt 1/3 cup of coconut oil (or butter or vegan butter).  Combine 1/3 cup of sucanat with 2 tbsp of cinnamon.  Add oil and mix until combined – try to dissolve sucanat (or sugar of your choice) as much as possible.  Pour this mixture on top of the dough (once it’s been put into the muffin cups).  I used approximately one tablespoon per bun.

The sucanat does not dissolve very well.  However, it was nice and yummy and crunchy.  The next day the cinnamon buns were still delish.  You must try these.  They are too easy to ignore.