Traditional British Baps Recipe (2024)

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Baps are soft white buns that are excellent for sandwiches, well worth making from scratch.

By

Sydney Oland

Traditional British Baps Recipe (1)

Sydney Oland

Sydney Oland lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, where she develops recipes and owns and operates three businesses: a bean-to-bar chocolate company, an ice cream company, and a collective food production space. Previously, she wrote brunch and British food recipe columns for Serious Eats.

Learn about Serious Eats'Editorial Process

Updated August 30, 2018

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Traditional British Baps Recipe (2)

Why It Works

  • Using plain pork sausage with just a few spices allows a bap to shine in a good breakfast sandwich.
  • The tartness from HP sauce and ketchup complements the elegance of the sausage bap.

A bap is, at its simplest, a bread roll. At its more complicated, it is a tender pillow of dough, often made with milk, lard, and butter. A more humble, Scottish version of the brioche. The bap is the ideal bread for a simple meat sandwich. Whether that meat is leftover boiled beef, mutton, bacon, or sausages, the bap takes a simple meat and elevates it to one of the most steadying sandwiches a person could crave. And it's especially good for those mornings when soaking up all of last night's bad decisions is a top priority.

While the bap makes an ideal bread for many sandwiches, I've found them particularly good for breakfast, especially if used to create a sausage bap, which is simply a sliced sausage stuffed inside a bap. What you should look for is a plain pork sausage, nothing too flashy—just some good quality pork well seasoned with a few spices so that the bap itself can shine. When serving sausage baps you should give your guests the option of topping or dipping their baps into HP sauce as well as ketchup. Both of these tart sauces make an ideal partner to the simple elegance of the sausage bap. Those sauces and a pint or two of some sort of dark ale, and whatever regrets you may be feeling will be replaced with the simple pleasure of an excellent sandwich.

October 2012

Recipe Details

Traditional British Baps Recipe

Active20 mins

Total2 hrs

Serves8 baps

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk, divided

  • 2/3 cup water

  • 2 teaspoons activedry yeast

  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar

  • 2 teaspoons salt

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting

  • Vegetable oil

  • 1 1/2 pounds breakfast sausage links

Directions

  1. Place 2/3 cup milk and water in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds; the mixture should be lukewarm. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over the warmed milk mixture and let sit until frothy, about 3 minutes.

  2. Sift salt with flour into a large bowl. Gently mix the yeast mixture with a fork, then pour over flour; mix with a wooden spoon until dough forms, then knead the dough lightly with your hands. Form the dough into a ball and place into an oiled bowl. Cover with a tea towel and let dough double in size, about 90 minutes.

  3. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 425°F (220°C). Punch down the dough and divide it into 8 portions. Form these into ovals, and set them on the baking sheet, leaving as much room as possible between them. Cover with plastic wrap, making sure that the wrap is touching the dough to prevent a skin from forming. Let rise for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Remove plastic wrap, then brush tops and sides of baps with remaining tablespoon milk, and sprinkle with flour. Bake until baps are puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack. Baps are best the day they are made but can be stored in a plastic bag or covered container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Reheat in a 350°F (180°C) oven for 5 minutes to refresh. Use baps for sandwiches.

Special Equipment

Baking sheet

  • Sandwiches
  • British
  • Sausages
  • Breakfast Sandwich
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
194Calories
2g Fat
38g Carbs
6g Protein

×

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories194
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 2g2%
Saturated Fat 0g2%
Cholesterol 2mg1%
Sodium 541mg24%
Total Carbohydrate 38g14%
Dietary Fiber 2g6%
Total Sugars 2g
Protein 6g
Vitamin C 0mg0%
Calcium 35mg3%
Iron 2mg12%
Potassium 92mg2%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Traditional British Baps Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between a bun and a bap? ›

But where baps are typically lighter in color, not excessively buttery, and topped with a dusting of flour, buns are usually darker, glossy, and sometimes topped with seeds.

What is a British bap? ›

A bap is, at its simplest, a bread roll. At its more complicated, it is a tender pillow of dough, often made with milk, lard, and butter. A more humble, Scottish version of the brioche. The bap is the ideal bread for a simple meat sandwich.

What are the ingredients in white BAPS? ›

Wheat Flour (calcium carbonate, iron, niacin, thiamine), Water, Yeast, Improvers (vegetable oil (palm, rapeseed), sugar, emulsifiers (E472(e) E471), flour treatment agents (E300 E304i)), yeast nutrient (E516)), Sugar, Salt.

Why are hamburger buns called BAPS? ›

While “cob” seems to describe the most basic version of a bun, a “bap” is a common bun that is made with butter or lard. This makes the roll softer than your usual bun. Also, according to lovefood.com, “bap” is a popular term for bun in London, northeast England, Northern Ireland, and much of south Wales.

What do Southerners call BAPS? ›

For example 'pants'-wearing northerners enjoy a 'bap', 'bun' or 'barm' for their 'tea', southerners in 'trousers' are more likely to tuck into a 'roll' for their 'dinner'. “It is not completely clear why different words are used to describe the same thing in different parts of the country,” Added Dr MacKenzie.

What do British people call hamburger buns? ›

The resounding answer: a bap. “We call it a bap,” she explained, “but because of the growth of the burger industry we changed the name of our burger baps to a burger bun. It's just what people ask for. So here we have baps, buns and rolls.”

What do they call a bap in Scotland? ›

the northwest to northern Scotland and the East. Midlands, you'll often hear a bread roll called a cob. Locals claim it's the original word to describe a roll, used for hundreds of years in farming and by the. nation's unofficial bread expert Paul Hollywood"

What do Brits call sandwiches? ›

The word butty, originally referring to a buttered slice of bread, is common in some northern and southern parts of England and Wales as a slang synonym for "sandwich," particularly to refer to certain kinds of sandwiches including the chip butty, bacon butty, or sausage butty. Sarnie is a similar colloquialism.

What do Brits call bread? ›

Cob, barmcake, teacake, a bara - they might sound like entirely different types of bread but these are actually just a few of the names used across Britain to describe bread.

Can you use BAPS for burgers? ›

However, regardless of whether you call your bun a bun or your bun a bap (or, dare I say, it's important they're soft, but not too soft, so that they can serve as sturdy support for sandwiches and burgers of all varieties, and most importantly, that they're delicious.

What are white BAPS? ›

Our white scotch baps 4pk are traditional white bread rolls, often also known as morning rolls, a name that suits them perfectly as they're great for breakfast whether served on the side of a full English fry-up or filled with your preference of bacon, sausage and egg plus ketchup or brown sauce.

How much sugar is in a white bap? ›

Nutritional Information
Typical ValuesPer 100gOne bap (95g)
Fat2.6g2.5g
Saturates0.7g0.7g
Carbohydrate47.7g45.3g
Sugars4.4g4.2g
6 more rows

What do Scottish people call bread rolls? ›

The map reveals teacakes are the term of choice in the West Country, while those in Newcastle favour stotty. Across the border, Glaswegians favour rowies, while those in the Highlands say cob.

What are Irish BAPS? ›

A Belfast bap is a large crusty white bread roll that originates from Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is best known today as the bread in a breakfast sandwich, but can be eaten as a regular sandwich bap.

What do Australians call bread rolls? ›

A Bap is a Soft, White Bread Roll

Clive didn't use the word 'bap' in England, nor did I in the U.S. In Australia, bap rolls are large, soft, flat, and round.

What are the three types of buns? ›

Some of the most common types include:
  • Dinner rolls: small, round rolls that are often served with meals.
  • Brioche buns: a type of French bread that is rich and buttery, often used for hamburgers and sandwiches.
  • Hot dog buns: long, thin buns that are specifically designed to hold hot dogs or sausages.
Jan 16, 2023

Who calls a roll a bap? ›

While not the most popular term in any county, there are nonetheless notable minorities of people (in the 20-29% group) using the name bap in Staffordshire, Cheshire, and Shropshire – where it is the second or joint-second most common term – as well as smaller minorities (in the 10-19% range) in Cornwall, Devon and the ...

What do Brits call a bread roll? ›

"Roll" crops up everywhere, but it's most common in the south, with "bun", which also shows up throughout the country, being the favoured word in the North East. "Barm" is very localised to the Manchester area, and "batch" is incredibly specific: this is used just by residents of Liverpool and Coventry.

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