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I posted this:
I have been making sandwich buns using the recipe posted from the Denver
Celiac Group recipe book.  It can be found in thearchives-November 1998,week
2 (#87).

It is a good recipe with an english muffin taste, slight stickiness to center
due to the ratio of tapioca flour. I found that you need to fill
the rings only half full otherwise they rise so much and
overflow. I have extra dough after filling 9 rings and 3 bent
oblong to make hot dog buns.  I spread out the extra on sprayed
foil next to the cookie sheet and plan to use it for
pizza crust. I don't want to have to do 2 rising and baking times
with the one recipe.

 My friend has also done this recipe and likes the sandwich buns
better than making a bread in the bread machine.  I find these are
multipurpose and don't crumble for travel.  I never use the bread I make in
the machinefor travel as it is too crumbly if I can't heat it. These serve
nicely as english muffins, pizza crusts, sandwichs and hamburg
buns!

My question is if anyone has used both rings and muffin top pans
and which they prefer?   I am wonderng how the muffin top pans
work but more important, I want to know how someone does the
whole baking procedure so that they are
only doing one baking time.  The dough has to be placed where it
is going to rise and has to be undisturbed before baking.

Responses:

A.I use Bette Hagman's crumpet recipe for my buns.  Her recipe
takes only one rising.  I use both English muffin rings and
muffin CROWN pans.  The muffin top ones are much smaller.  I
haven't tried them for English muffins, I have them, but I
suppose they would be good if you want small rolls.  I use an ice
cream scoop for the batter and divide the batter equally into all
the forms.  I like to use the English muffin rings if I want to
have English muffins toasted as they are a lot thicker.  I prefer
using the muffin crown pans for sandwiches or hamburgers as the
result is much thinner and I find that with the rings it is too
much bread for me.  I lucked outand got a whole bunch of Baker's
Secret non stick pans, both crowns and tops, in a dollar store.
Of course, it is much easier using the non stick pans than it is
greasing all those forms and cleaning them and the baking sheet.
Also, you can make quite a few more buns with the crown pans, of
course, they are thinner.


B.I altered the recipe from archives of Fantastic recipe for
Hamburger/Sandwich Buns to using 3 1/3 cups Betty
Hagman's flour mix  and 2/3 cup tapioca flour.   I like it much
better; it's not nearly as sticky in the center.

C.I bake all the bunch on the 2 racks, and in mid time of baking,
switch the upper ones on the lower rack and vice-versa.

D.I've started doing both.  I fill up the hamburger bun pan
(alias english muffinpan) and with what's leftover I fill up the
english muffin rings.  (Like the rings,you can't fill them up too
much, but too little is hard to slice.  It takes a couple of
times to get it just right.  I like the hamburger bun pan's
mostly forthe sandwiches or hamburgers.  They kind of form a
mushroom like top and that seems to hold things in better.  I
usually slice the ones in the rings and sometimes make sandwiches
with them but mostly toast.

 Now to tell you what I do.

Before I take the dough out of bread machine, I heat the oven for
5 minutes on warm.  I make sure the racks are far enough apart.
I usually put sesame seeds on them before rising.  It sticks
better.  Sometimes I do the same with flax seeds.  I put the pan
and the rings on different racks and I try to let them rise
almost an hour.  Sometimes, they don't need that long.  I take
them out carefully so as not to jar them and preheat the oven.  I
bake them separately, which only takes about 10 minutes each.  I
tried for the first time the other day to bake them at the same
time on different racks.  You can imagine what happened.  The
ones on top didn't brown on the bottom and the one's on the
bottom didn't brown on the top.

So, I'm going to stick with baking them at different times, but I
let them rise together.  I use Sylvan Farms bread mix.  It has
Quinoa and Amaranth, which I know can be controversial.  But they
advertise it as gluten-free and the lady that works
there has celiac and says it's safe.  My son has never had a
problem with itither.  It's just a lot easier.  You just add
eggs, water & oil.  It comes allmixed with a separate yeast
package.

E.I've used both the rings and muffin top pans. When I use the
rings, I make 16  of them; I think I made 3 pans of 6 cup muffin
top pans. They turned out pretty thin and were very hard to slice
before freezing, so I will probably go back to the rings.
However, since I am a diabetic and try to watch the carbs, the
ones in the muffin top pans were probably better for
me!I just put the rings on a big cookie pan (about the size of
the whole oven!) so they are easily moved from my top oven where
I let them rise to the bottom one where I bake them. I also have
bought some scoops that are designed to use in making muffins,
and have figured out which one makes about one bun. However, I do
smooth them with a spoon dipped in water.

F.I have 2 of the muffin top pans, and I find that that amount
works for the kind of recipe that has 3 cups of flour in it.  I
never use a loaf pan (or rings), only the muffin tops, and I
haven't found a recipe yet that they don't work with. I have
contemplated getting the deeper "yorkshire pudding" pans -
basically the holes are the diameter of the rings/muffin tops,
except they are deeper.   The Gluten-Free Pantry has started to
carry them.

G.I prefer muffin-top pans.  I tried making rings from old tin
cookie cutters, and although they do work very well, it's too
much work to clean up.  For a few more words than this, and a few
pictures, see
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8672/gordy/gogfhist.htm#top

H.Have been using the same soft bread recipe since it appeared on
the list, however I make my sandwich rolls a bit differently.

I obtain from a paper good supply store, 4 inch aluminum pie
tins, I round out the bottom crease in the pie tins with my
finger, so the tins are now more rounded.  Simply spray with G/F
cooking oil and half  fill each tin with the bread dough and
allow to rise and bake.  I can usually place about 12 of these
tins on a large cookie sheet, which is easy to
handle.  Have also tried muffin top pans, but find the above
method better.  These aluminum tins can be reused after each
baking.

  **Someone mentioned letting the dough rise in the warm oven and
then turning it up to bake.  I already do this but that is my
point about not doing two baking times.  One is enough to let
rise and bake for one recipe. Also someone mentioned the
stickiness can be too much liquid and that the yeast is to help
create air bubbles- the classic holes in english muffins. I have
reduced the liquid in the recipe already but may reduce it more.

Hope this helps others. Diane