Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Whole Wheat Hamburger and Hot Dog Buns

 After trying these, you may just not want to go back to store-bought ever again!


Ingredients
 

8 hamburger buns/
12 hot dog buns
6 hamburger buns/
8 hot dog buns
Water (lukewarm)
1 cup
5/8 cup
Egg
1
1
Whole Wheat Flour*
3 cups
2 cups
Vital wheat gluten*
1/8 cup
1 ½ tablespoons
Salt
¾ teaspoon
½ teaspoon
¼ cup
3 tablespoons
Sugar
¼ cup
3 tablespoons
Active dry yeast
3 teaspoons
3 teaspoons

* The original recipe calls for a proportion of 1/3 whole wheat flour, and 2/3 white flour. In the larger batch, that would be 1 cup WW and 2 cups white flour; in the smaller batch, 2/3 cup WW and 1 1/3 cups white flour. The original recipe did NOT include the vital wheat gluten, which I added just to make up for the fact that I use all whole wheat. Please adjust according to your family's taste preference, omitting the gluten if you use mostly white flour. For a healthier version, you could use more and more WW and less and less white flour over time.

** The shortening I suggest is really just 100% palm oil, which is naturally solid yet soft at room temperature, much like hydrogenated shortening. It is available at most health food stores. Whole Foods carries it. If you cannot get a 100% natural shortening like that, please use melted butter or oil instead.


Directions

1. If using a bread machine: Place all ingredients in the bread pan of your bread machine, select "dough" setting, push start. 

If using a stand-mixer such as KitchenAid, place water, egg, shortening, salt and sugar in bowl, stir to mix. Add yeast, stir again. Add flour and gluten; turn machine on and knead with the kneading hook for about 5 minutes, until the dough is soft, pliable, and pulls away from the bowl in a nice ball, without being tough and dry. When in doubt, you'd rather have your dough too wet than too dry.

If kneading by hand, mix ingredients in same order as you would using a stand mixer, except knead by hand for about 5 minutes.

2. Cover dough and allow to rest until doubled in bulk. This can take 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on where you live (greatly affected by humidity and temperature). If using your bread machine, this rising will automatically be included in the "dough" cycle.

3. Turn dough out onto a large floured cutting board or other work surface. With a sharp knife, divide dough into pieces, depending on whether you made the larger or smaller batch, and whether you are making hamburger or hot dog buns. For example, if you made the larger batch of dough and want to make hot dog buns, divide your dough into 12 equal portions, etc.

4. Grease a large baking sheet. For hamburger buns, roll pieces of dough into balls and flatten. For hot dog buns, shape into 6 inch long rolls. Do not make your hot dog rolls too thick, as the dough will almost double during baking, making your hot dog buns too wide if you do not start off with a relatively thin roll (not much thicker than your thumb). 

5. Cover buns and let rise in warm oven until almost doubled, about 10 to 15 minutes. To warm your oven slightly, set it to the lowest temperature setting for just a minute, then turn oven off again. 

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake buns 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, immediately rub the top and sides of each bun liberally with a stick of butter, and move buns to cool on cooling racks. 

7. Enjoy the same day, or store in the freezer for 3 to 4 weeks.

Note: I usually double the larger batch, giving me a total of 16 hamburger buns, or 24 hot dog buns, or any combination of the two. If you have a 5qt or larger capacity KitchenAid, it will be able to handle that much dough. This makes it easy to store buns in the freezer and have them on hand when needed.

Recipe adapted from Bread Machine Magic, p. 155 (lots of other nice bread recipes in this book; available used from Amazon for $0.01 plus $3.99 S/H)

5 comments:

  1. Wow! Very impressive! Everything looks great...only problem is that I can't SMELL them.

    :-)

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  2. (oops, this was supposed to be on the bread post...)

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  3. Hey I have followed your staple bread recipe twice now and both times have produced absolutely delicious loaves of bread. The only problem I have is that the bread is crumbly and does not slice well for sandwiches. Any suggestions for less crumbly bread? Thanks,

    Matthew

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  4. Just wanted to let you know what a blessing these bread recipes have been to me lately! As you know I just received my first stand mixer and I have been on he hunt for great recipes that include directions for a mixer! Thank you for posting these! :)

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  5. We've had two refurbished kitchenAid mixers (one 450 and one 600 watt) since 2007. I killed them both. One gave up the Ghost while making cookies for the homeless at Christmastime 2011. I've baked almost all our bread for the last 2 & 1/2 to 3 years. I so enjoy! Thanks for the bun recipe!

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