Japanese milk rolls (second try)

My first CSA box came with local flour (with a milling date! never seen that before), and one of their recipe suggestions was Japanese milk rolls. My first try did not go well; it seems I did not knead it long enough, and so I got dense blobs where fluffy rolls were supposed to be. (Still edible, but clearly not the intended results.) The second time, today, I said hey, I have tools for this, and used the bread machine to do the kneading. (I've never used it to make dough before, always finished bread.)

At the end of the kneading the dough formed a nice ball; after the rise it was bigger (not doubled) and more of a blob. That is, it didn't make a bigger ball. I don't know if it's supposed to. The next step was to separate it, make eight balls, and put them in a pan to rise again for 45-50 minutes. The dough was very sticky and that made it hard to shape; I sprinkled a little flour onto it while working with it so it didn't all stick to my hands. I don't know if that's so standard with bread that it goes without saying (this beginner didn't know, if so), or if that's not supposed to be necessary and I did something wrong.

The proto-rolls did expand in this second rise (I failed to take a "before" picture). The final product is definitely better than try #1, though they're still less fluffy than I expected from reading the recipe. I wouldn't be embarrassed to serve them to guests, but I will probably stick with less-fussy breads in the future. (This one involves making a "starter" (tangzhong) that's sort of like a roux. That, too, is new to me for bread.)