Rolls with butter

My wife wanted to make me happy, so she baked a kilo (2.2 lb.) of rolls for me. Before baking them, she smeared them with butter, to improve their taste. After the deed was done, we realized that it’s forbidden to eat bread that was kneaded with milk. What is the law, and is there room to be lenient in this case?  

The butter was spread on the rolls before they were baked, in a way that on the one hand, it’s not nullified, and, on the other hand, its presence is not apparent. Rolls are something that people sometimes eat together with meat. Therefore, the Sages’ decree against baking non-neutral bread is relevant here. It’s forbidden to eat such bread even by itself.

And even if a large amount was made [for Ashkenazim: an amount that is not eaten in one day; for Sephardim: an amount that is not eaten in one meal], it is still forbidden to eat them.

But because the rolls were made for home use only, it’s enough that they be given a unique shape before baking, in a way that you don’t normally make at home.

As for the status of the oven and the trays, there is an opinion that baking non-kosher bread makes them non-kosher as well, but practically, one should be lenient on this issue.  

Shulchan Oruch, section Yore Dea, ch. 97, §1