I love garlic bread in any form and it adds more drama if spices are infused together with garlic. This is one of the amazingly soft buns you might have ever made. And what makes it more easy is to just pull away a bite sized bread and gobble it up as you go without worrying about the damage that you may create to the entire loaf.

I have used the mixed spices that comes in sachets with the dominoes pizzas But you can use any spice of your choice. To make it less richer, I have used half butter and half oil.

You can cut down the amount of garlic if you are not a fan of garlic, you can use just the spices with the butter and oil.

I have used chilly flakes but you can choose to add, crushed peppercorns.

And yes, you can make any shape out of this dough. Simple burger buns are also great.

1. Line a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with butter paper. Butter and flour the same. Pre-heat oven to 200 degree C.

2. Add the ingredients of the spiced garlic oil in a bowl and mix together. Set aside.

3. Add all-purpose flour, yeast, sugar and salt in the bowl of your electric beater. If using hands to knead, add the dry ingredients in a large bowl or a clean work counter. Use dough hook and start to beat on medium speed to mix the ingredients.

4. Add the egg and beat again until combined.

5. Add water and milk in a saucepan and heat it up for few seconds. Check the temperature of the liquid mixture. It should be a bearable heat when you touch it for a count of 5 seconds. If its too hot or too easy to bear, then you may fail the yeast. Check for the temperature test to activate your yeast.

6. Slowly pour the liquid into the flour mixture and start to beat/knead for about 7 to 10 minutes on medium high speed. If using hands, knead for about 15 minutes.

7. The dough will first start to be a rough textured dough at about 2 to 3 minutes of beating. You need to continue beating/kneading until it starts to become a shiny smooth dough.

8. At the end of half of the kneading time, add butter and continue to incorporate the butter into the dough and beat on medium high speed further.

9. That’s how the final dough will look like. Smooth and shiny at the end of 10 to 15 minutes.

10. Transfer the dough on your work counter and cover it with a bowl. You can alternatively, keep the dough in a bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Leave it to double in volume for about 45 minutes.

11. That is the result of first proving. Remove the bowl and punch down the dough and knead roughly to release all the air from the dough.

12. Roughly make a log shape out of the dough and cut them into one inch slices.

13. Drop once slice at a time into the spiced garlic oil mixture and use a spoon to coat it completely.

14. Place the spiced up dough slice into the prepared loaf pan.

15. Keep adding the spiced up dough pieces next to each other and then make another layer on top of the bottom layer. They can be placed roughly without any specific pattern.

16. Cover the top of the pan with a damp cloth and keep it aside to again increase in volume. This is the second proving for about 15 minutes. Brush the top of the dough with egg wash.

17. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and keep on wire rack. Immediately brush the top with olive oil. This will soften up the crust.

Once cool down to luke warm, remove from the loaf pan and serve it warm. These are great as they are, don’t need any accompaniment. You may as well serve them with any of your favorite dips or a simple tomato sauce if you are a dipstatically challenged person like I am ( A term I want to use for a person like me, who has still not ventured into the world of dips )