Vegan Rye Almond "Buns"

There are so many things in this life that I am uncertain of (oooh, drama). I still don't know how long it actually takes to boil an egg,  I keep forgetting how to write my birth year in Japanese and I can never guess which between the two elevator doors in our apartment building will open. It's confronting sometimes. However I do know that mucking around in the kitchen makes me happy. I do like to eat.

I've never made bread before. The years that I have under my belt making banana bread sadly are irrelevant. Yeast is such a tricky thing and as you read on, you'll figure out why. Hence from here on now, all my active yeast encounters shall proceed with caution.

I had planned to make brioche buns but after having perused recipes online, it seemed a bit out of league for a virgin yeast-user like me. Instead, this simple recipe had me telling myself "I am intrepid!"
Also, choosing to make Rye Almond bread (and vegan at that) was because of the good-on-paper-nutrition counts. I always buy rye bread loaves when I can. I just enjoy how nutty and dense it is compared to white bread (gasp).

I tweaked the recipe a bit by using brown sugar instead of raw sugar and by adding only 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder as I didn't wants my buns too dark. No disrespect.

The dough actually looks pretty, doesn't it? I was so happy kneading it. I felt like the Pilsbury doughboy. But it all went downhill from there and it was because I didn't knead the dough before letting it rise the first time. If you read the recipe though, you'll find that I was just doing what I was told (I don't accept mistakes that easy).

So rule of thumb for bread baking: KNEAD BY HAND BEFORE LETTING RISE.
Don't know how to knead? Me neither. Thank goodness for Youtube.

Allow me to cut to the chase. They look fairly decent but actually, they have the height of about a chunky cookie. My buns didn't rise enough because of the knead-lessness at the beginning resulting to a really dense and compact texture. Personally, I thought they taste like cardboard but my mum and brother said they're pretty good.

Not sure if that was them being extra appreciative or it was me being shameful. Though I have to say, they tasted pretty good when they came fresh out of the oven, with some butter of course. Also quite nice with some peanut butter. But who am I kidding? Everything tastes good with peanut butter. In fact, when I think of peanut butter, I think "Bread? Ain't nobody got time fo' dattt."

I'm gonna give bread baking another go. And when I do get it right, oh the endless possibilities!