Baking Day!
I woke up knowing that I was going to smoke some Black Angus burgers for dinner tonight. The problem was that I didn’t have hamburger rolls and I didn’t want to buy another bag of overly processed junk from the grocery store. The solution? Bake some buns myself. Baking bread has become routine for me because I found a simple, easily followed recipe at King Arthur Baking. Since I love that recipe so much, it made sense to look for a Hamburger Bun recipe on the same site. You can find the one I used HERE.
The recipe I used today is Hamburger or Hot Dog Buns by Betsy Openneer. It was simple, quick and in my opinion produced beautifully baked buns. This recipe is definitely going into my recipe binder and I’m going to whip up a batch of hot dog buns next week. It yields 18 buns. The batch I baked today produced 17 buns. That was because even after doing the math and knowing that each bun should be about 70 grams each, I somehow managed to roll out 72 gram buns every time. I’m not quibbling over 2 grams and it’s my first attempt. The weight and shape will improve with every bake. That’s the goal.
One hour first rise, 45 minute second rise and 20 minutes in the oven. All I can say is that I’m looking forward to having a backyard burger tonight!
Second rise. Time to add the egg wash.
Twenty minutes in the oven and BAM! Buns! With time and practice I’ll get a uniform shape and color but I love these buns so much!
Egg wash done! I thought about adding sesame seeds but passed on it this time. Time to pop them into the oven!
Up close and personal. Now I just have to keep my husband from snagging a few before dinner tonight!
I’m planning to keep five buns out and freeze a dozen for future meals. With Memorial Day and Independence Day coming up this summer, I’ll be baking a batch every other week so that I have enough for our family barbecues. I didn’t shape any into hot dog rolls but plan to do it next bake. The one thing I’ll do next time is put parchment paper on the trays. Oh and I did the math to figure out how much this cost to bake: $3.25 for 17 buns. My price will be different than yours based on how much your ingredients cost and whether you used a gas oven or an electric oven. Purchasing the cheapest buns at my local grocery store would have cost me $3.98 for 16 buns. If I purchased the higher end national brand buns? A whopping $10. Baking is something that brings me joy. If it didn’t, I’d still bake buns, bread, rolls etc. because it’s affordable and I control what goes into our food.
Peace,
Nim
