With the grilling season upon us, I thought I’d share this recipe, adapted from the Gourmet magazine. You might ask why trouble yourself with making such commonly-available thing as a hotdog bun, but you’ll understand it once you try this recipe. It makes truly outstanding buns – soft, tender, delicious. Yes, there’s cream in the dough (which contributes to the buns’ amazing texture), but divided between all buns, there’s not as crazy-much cholesterol. And anyway, hotdogs were never quite a diet food, weren’t they?
If you have a bread maker, you can just dump everything there to make the dough. I admit, I do use my bread machine for dough-making purposes once in a while, when I hurry while multitasking and need to have the dough ready at a certain moment.
Makes 16 hot dog buns or 24 miniature burger buns (well, I like making them small and stuff with little grilled chicken or turkey burgers, kids love them; but you sure can make the buns bigger, just bake longer in this case)
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup warm water
- 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast
- 1 ¼ cup warm milk
- 1 cup warm heavy cream
- ¼ cup sugar
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp salt
For the burger buns:
- 1 egg + 1 tbsp milk or water, whisked together for egg wash
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
Preparation:
If using a bread-maker, simply put everything (except the egg and sesame) in the machine according to the manufacturer’s direction, set the “Dough” cycle.
If using a stand mixer, combine the warm water and yeast in the mixer bowl, cover and let stand in a warm place until foamy, about 5 minutes. If there’s no activity in the bowl, buy fresh yeast and start all over.
Add the warm milk and cream, sugar, flour, and salt to the yeast mixture, stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Attach the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and knead on medium speed for 6 minutes. The dough will be sticky.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled large bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover and let rise in warm draft-free place until doubled, about 2 hrs.
To make the hot dog buns:
Brush a 13×18 baking jelly-roll pan with oil.
Punch the dough down and divide into 16 equal pieces. On a lightly floured surface, shape each piece of dough into a 6-inch-long log (I form them as I’d do a baguette, only without tapered ends). Space the logs evenly in the pan, placing them in two parallel rows, 8 buns in each row.
Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in the warm place until buns start to touch, 1 ½-2 hrs.
Meanwhile, center the oven rack and preheat the oven to 375F.
Carefully remove the plastic wrap from the buns. Bake the buns until the tops are golden and undersides are golden-brown and sound hollow when tapped, 28 to 30 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Before using, pull the buns apart, cut lengthwise down center of each, but not all the way through.
To make the mini burger buns:
Brush with oil two 13×18” jelly-roll pans.
Punch the dough down and divide into 24 equal pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece of dough into a tight ball, and then flatten each ball slightly with a palm of your hand. Space the buns equally on the prepared baking sheets (12 buns on each sheet). Once you filled the first baking sheet, cover the buns with oiled plastic wrap and place them in the warm place to rise, for about 1 to 1½ hrs. Keep shaping the remaining buns, then let them rise as well.
Center the oven rack and preheat the oven to 375F.
Carefully remove the plastic from the buns, brush their tops with the egg wash, and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake the buns in batches, until the tops are golden and undersides are golden-brown and sound hollow when tapped, about 23 minutes. Transfer the buns to the cooling rack to cool.
The buns are the best the day they are made, but they can be frozen in sealable bags up to 2 weeks. Just freeze them fresh, as soon as they are cool.
May 6, 2018 at 10:13 am
Wow it’s loving,but is there no alternative for the cream
April 1, 2017 at 4:32 am
Delicious..Loving it..
October 28, 2014 at 12:33 am
Hi! This is the first time I read your blog, I was surprise , cause I saw a lot of website and your blog was so good, I will try some receipes from your, thanks anyway.
February 21, 2014 at 11:45 am
Vera, thank you for the recipe. The burger buns I made came out great! The texture holds up to all the condiments that get smeared and loaded on the cut-up buns. They are even great as simple rolls too!
January 23, 2014 at 4:29 am
Getting even more confused by 2 1/4 tsp of yeast?! HELP!!!
January 23, 2014 at 4:22 am
Hello there, I know it’s kind of a old post but I have just bumped into it while looking for a nice American recipe for my next post and I definitely want to try this – not only because here in London it’s very difficult to find nice bread!!!
just one question: how do I convert cups into ml or gr?!
does it make sense 1/4 cup of water = 60ml ?! never trust unknown website and I think for bread making it is vital to get the right precise quantity, right?!
sorry to bother you, I’d love to be more practical and (live in US and) use cups for measuring… but I don’t. :(
January 23, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Valeria, you are right, 1/4 cup is 60 ml. 2 1/4 tsp ~ 11 ml. Here is a useful conversion table from Imperial units to Metric: http://www.foodgeeks.com/resources/conversion_charts
October 9, 2013 at 5:55 pm
I was sooo excited when I found this recipe on Pinterest!! I’ve been looking for a good homemade bun recipe for awhile, but until this I wasn’t really excited about how any of them sounded. I have french dip in the crockpot for my husband, and I think he is going to loooovveee these buns with it! (I hope! I’ll find out tomorrow when the french dip is done & he has it for lunch!) Thanks!
I do have a question, though. For the egg wash, are you using a whole egg or just the white? It wasn’t specified, so I wanted to be sure. Thanks!
April 23, 2013 at 8:27 pm
I can’t wait for grilling season to finally get started! Fresh, homemade buns are always better than store bought. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
April 23, 2013 at 5:26 am
I had no idea homemade buns were that easy! I’ll have to give it a shot for our BBQ this weekend!
April 16, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Kanwal, you are very welcome. Donuts… what if I make them when the bikini season is over? :) Hope, it’s not urgent.
April 16, 2013 at 11:03 am
thanks vera why don’t you make donut i really want to make it with your recipe please make it if you can.thanks
April 15, 2013 at 2:53 pm
Kanwal, you can use instant yeast. And sure, feel free to use all-purpose flour instead of whole wheat, the same amount.
April 15, 2013 at 1:12 pm
they look perfect i want to make them vera can i use instant yeast with the same quantity and also i don’t want to use whole wheat flour can I use 1-1/2 cup all purpose flour instead of wheat flour ?
April 15, 2013 at 7:13 am
Rosa, Kisa, thank you for your kind comments!
April 14, 2013 at 10:15 pm
They’ve been great! and precious photos
Mil besossss
April 14, 2013 at 10:02 pm
Beautiful! Homemade bread is the best.
Cheers,
Rosa