My 95th experiment: Soft buns with wet dough

I am trying out delayed fermentation with soft buns.

Recipe: Soft buns with wet dough (8 buns)

Ingredients:
Preferment
- 2 cups KAF whole wheat flour
- 2 tp active dry yeast
- 1 cup skim milk
Final dough
- 1 TB cocoa
- 3 TB sugar
- 3/4 tp salt
- 1/4 cup KAF bread flour

Procedure:

Day 1:
Mix 2 cup of flour with all the dry yeast. Add milk and stir until a uniform dough is formed. Chill overnight.

Day 2:
1. Take dough out of fridge.
2. Add cocoa, sugar and salt. Mix and knead well.
3. Add flour by sprinkling on top of dough. Then knead gently to work the flour into the dough.
4. When the dough is soft and not too sticky to hand any more, roll out on table and cut into small pieces.
5. Freeze those reserved.
6. To prepare for same-day baking, Let dough rise for 1 hour or so. Then brush top with a little water and bake at 350F, about 15 minutes.

Results:
Day 1, 2:28pm, to mix 2 cups of whole wheat flour with 2 tp yeast, then add 1 cup milk:

Day 1, 2:43pm, thickness and hydration of initial dough:

Day 1, 4:36pm, overnight fermentation:

Day 1, 4:42pm, to add 1 TB cocoa, 3 TB sugar and 3/4 tp salt:

Day 1, 4:52pm dough kneaded, still moist; to add 1/4 to 1/2 cup bread flour:

Day 1, 4:56pm, final dough after adding 1/4 cup flour:

Day 1, 4:59pm, very soft, smooth and moist dough rolled out:

Day 1, 5:01pm, dough cut into pieces, very soft, but amazingly not sticky to knife:

Day 1, 5:05pm, 2 pieces of dough to bake on the same day:

Day 1, 5:34pm, dough risen 30 minutes:

Observations:
1. The dough is very very wet. Therefore, this limit the amount that the dough can rise.
2. After overnight fermentation, the whole wheat dough achieves a very nice texture and cohesiveness. It gives clean cuts.
3. The resultant buns are quite good.