In a large bowl add the butter, honey and salt and pour the boiling water over the ingredients. Stir and let it sit so that the butter melts and the salt dissolves. Let this cool to room temperature. You want to make sure that this isn't too hot as it will otherwise kill your yeast.

While the above mixture cools, activate the yeast. Stir the lukewarm water and sugar together in a medium bowl to dissolve and sprinkle in the yeast. Mix gently to combine and let it sit for around 10 minutes, until the yeast is foamy and 'activates'.

Add 1 cup of flour to the cooled butter mixture in step 1 and stir to combine. Add the eggs to this mixture and stir to combine, if using (I often omit them, the dough is great without them too). Add the yeast mixture from step 2 to this bowl and stir to combine again.

Gradually add the remaining flour, cup by cup, until the dough gets too difficult to stir in the bowl.  At this point, transfer the dough on to a clean floured surface (your counter) and knead by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, adding more flour as you knead to get a soft but not sticky dough. It should feel squishy like a baby's bum when it is done!

Transfer the dough into a large greased bowl, cover with a clean tea towel, and place in a draft-free warm area to rise until doubled, about an hour.

Preheat your oven to 375 F and grease one 9x13 sheet baking pans or 3 loaf pans. You can alternately use any shape of pan you want - I used round ones like the one pictured above and it works fine.  Cut off pieces of dough that are approximately 1/2 cup in size (doesn’t have to be exact!) and form into buns.  I keep my fingers slightly floured and tuck the dough under as I stretch the dough to make it smooth on top, but you can use whatever technique you like! You can make hamburger buns by spacing the buns out more and flattening them before baking or hot dog buns by forming them into mini loaves or logs (using the same quantity of dough).

Place the buns about a 1/2 inch apart on the greased pan, cover with a clean towel and let rise until doubled.

Bake for around 20 minutes or until nicely browned, and remove from the pan immediately once baked to cool on a cooling rack (if you don't have a rack just dump the pan upside down and let them cool that way). These freeze well once cooled.