Help me bake some cheap bread for distribution

You can drop the sugar - its not needed.

You can mix dried and fresh yeast directly into the flour. For fresh yeast just rub it in - handfull of flour from the bowl and rub hem together.

You need the salt, but no more than 1.8% of the total flour weight.

What you'll get is simple bread.

You'll get a better bread if you add a bit more water and autolyze the flour/dough first - mix flour & water together and leave for an hour or 2, then add the yeast & salt, knead.

You'll get a better bread if you do a 2-step rise process - mix/knead then leave to rise, then tip out, shape into rolls/buns then let rise again before baking.

Small breads won't last long anyway - they'll stale and dry quickly due to increased surface aea so there's not much you can do there before resorting to industrial processes. If you want a softer crust after baking, one way is to cover with a towel while they cool when they come out of the oven.

If they're not baked in the middle, then bake longer/hotter. I do rolls for about 12-15 miuntes at 220C...

Possibly better off with a banana inside than some chocolate powder.

Cheap & nutritious often don't go together. You make one thing cheap at the expense of another. Do make sure you're not feeding people something that might make them worse in the long-run...

-Gordon

Put a banana in your buns.  Horlicks is a bunch of chemicals. 

As to your issue, are you letting the buns rise long enough? Bushing the crust before baking with milk might help keep the crusts soft. 

inside is done I just brush them with milk or water when they come out of the oven.  This softens the crust perfectly.  A bit of oi in the dough will make them last a bit longer before they stale too we arenlt talking much oil here - maybe 1% of the flour weight so it isn't that expensive.

Love what you are doing 

How are you baking them? Maybe you could put them together in a pan so they are separable when baked, but the sides stay softer. I'm not sure about covering buns while they bake but can you put another pan over the top for about the first 5 minutes then remove it to brown them?

If your schedule allows, you could also try making a pre-ferment - mix some of the flour with water and a tiny bit of yeast, then leave it for 6 - 12 hours until it is very bubbly and well-risen. Then mix it with the rest of your ingredients, adding another tiny bit of dry yeast at this point. Let it all rise till double, then shape into the buns, put them into a pan and let them rise again (about an hour, maybe). Then bake. You will use a lot less yeast this way. Fresh yeast is cheaper but also you need 3-4 times as much of it.

Do you have potatoes there, and are they cheap? Adding a bit of cooked, mashed potato will make them more nutritious and also keep them softer and more moist too.

Switching to fresh yeast should have no impact at all on your buns, in terms of flavor or otherwise. Don't expect any flavor impact -- the buns are not going to taste yeast-y unless you use way too much yeast (and you should not do that). So switch to fresh yeast, since it's cheaper for you. You may have to experiment to find out how much to use to replace the dry yeast. There are some Internet resources about such a substitution, so just Google it. 

Both oil and sugar do impact the flavor of bread, as well as its texture, so if you want to change the flavor you may have to reconsider your use of them. But you may have access to other non-traditional "flavorings" that are economical for you -- spices, herbs, fresh or dried fruits, coconut, nuts, etc. For instance, if you can get bananas cheaply, add some to the bread -- it will improve the moisture and flavor! Time for you to do some experimenting!

One thing you should try is to make a little extra dough, and keep a piece of that dough from one day's baking to add to the next day's mix. In other words, use a little day-old dough (unbaked) in your new dough every day. That should not only improve the flavour of your bread for no extra cost, but should also reduce the amount of yeast you need every day.

Also, to improve flavor, if possible you can mix the dough and use about 10% less yeast and put in the refrigerator overnight.  This will definitely improve the flavor.  As someone else suggested, a little mashed potato will also soften the dough and add some flavor as well as any other fat/oil.  Adding some onions that have been cooked down and caramelized will also add a ton of flavor.  Garlic is another idea but may be too expensive.

Look forward to hearing about your next bake and I'm sure your audience will appreciate it.

Hunger will make anything taste great and I laud you for your efforts to feed kids.

One of the most lacking nutrients in hungry people is vitamin A, which is essential for eyesight. Any time you can add sweet potataoes,yams, squash, carrots or really anything orange to your bread, it would be beneficial. Steam vegetables lightly and mash them and add them to the dough as part of the moisture-water and all. It will also make the rolls a pretty yellow or orange.

Beans still cost but are usually cheap and a great source of protein. Adding beans in some way to the rolls will up the nutritional value, also. Perhaps adding sweetened bean paste as a filling can be a good way to do this. You can use some of the Horlicks for this, perhaps, or whatever sweet fruit is available. Here,fruit vendors are usually happy to get rid of their brown bananas, which would be perfect for this use.

Enlist the food vendors help. Often, people feel good about helping but just don't know how to do it. Ask!. My mother always told me that if you don't ask, the answer is always "NO" but if you ask, sometimes it is "YES".

What part of the world are you in?

Glad you found a successful method and thank you for caring for the children.

The bread is bland because it is being baked before it has had time to develop any flavor. Look for recipes that use a Preferment (Biga, old dough, mother dough or sourdough starter; they all work just fine). The longer the preferment ages, the more flavor it will bring to your bread. It will also save you on the cost of yeast because the preferment grows enough yeast in it to raise your bread every day. Using a preferment means that you will only need flour, water and salt, so you save on the cost of buying yeast. I would not add anything else to the dough, just focus on making as much bread as you can for the children each day.

I actually meant split & fill them with banana. Like a hot dog, but banana...

-Gordon

Use potato.  I guarantee you can't go wrong with that and if possible either use a pre-ferment or bulk retard the dough in the refrigerator overnight.