Kaiser Rolls

When I was little, my mom made all of our bread - but not just the stuff for a sandwich! Mom made hot dog rolls, hamburger buns and almost anything else you might think of involving yeast, flour and a little bit of magic. Until recently, I had mostly made loaves of bread and a few sweet yeasted doughs, but I decided to branch out a bit and try this recipe for Kaiser Rolls, those soft fluffy sandwich buns I love to eat fresh from the bakery. Here they are, fresher, from my oven:

I started this dough after work and managed to have a (late-ish) dinner. Here is the dough just mixed together before kneading:
*I used olive oil in these rolls instead of the butter specified in the recipe I linked above, partially because I didn't have time to soften butter, and partially because I was planning to stuff these with sausage, peppers and onions!

And after the first round of kneading - this dough has to rest for a few minutes in between getting kneaded. It really helped relax this dough:

Once the dough rose, I used my bench scraper to cut it into six pieces:

At this point, the pieces are shaped into rounds and then a kaiser stamp is used to give the trademark marking on top. I haven't yet invested in a stamp, so I just left the rolls to rise and look a bit more like hamburger buns:

And the finished product, stuffed with sausage, peppers and onions, was worth making again, so a kaiser stamp may be in my future: