Home made hamburger buns. (You’ll never buy buns again!)

While not a ‘true’ heritage recipe, I think making your own hamburger buns ranks up there with home made bread!

The density of these buns are heavier and therefor chewier than air puffed store bought buns. They also have a pleasanter taste.

Makes 8-12 buns depending on the size you want.

For hamburgers, I make the twelve count size, for sandwiches I do the eight count size.

Ingredients;

DRY (mix together before combining with Wet)

3 1/2 cups of bread flour (high gluten or bread flour) *

1/4 cup of sugar

1 1/4 tsp of salt

1 Tablespoon of yeast  (most any variety works well, one rises a bit faster than the other, that’s all )

* For delicious whole wheat Buns, use 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of bread or high gluten flour

WET (mix together before combining with Dry)

1 cup of warm water

2 Tablespoons of melted butter (not hot)

1 large egg (beaten)

Extra ingredients;

2  Tablespoons of melted butter ( to brush tops with before and after baking)**

Directions

Place DRY ingredients into a large mixing bowl (I use my Kitchen Aide mixer for this). Mix DRY ingredients for 1 minute before slowly adding WET ingredients into the mixing bowl. Run mixer until a smooth soft dough ball forms. ( 5 minutes minimum.)

Remove dough ball and place in a greased bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel until almost double in size. 1-2 hours. (Rising time depends on telp of dough, yeast, etc… don’t rush it but don’t let it get past double in size.

Once doubled, remove dough ball and press down lightly until it is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in thickness.

 

Using a knife, cut the round dough into 8 or 12 pie shaped triangles.

Shape triangles into balls by pulling the three corners into the center, then continue pulling the sides into the center and pushing them deep into the rounded ball until a nice round ball without top or side wrinkles are seen.

Let small rounded dough rest for 5 more minutes.

With the palm of your hand, slowly flatten and spread out the dough balls until disc is about 1/2 inch thick and a minimum of 3 inches in diameter. The 8 cut size will be over 4 inches in diameter.

Place flattened disc on a parchment lined bakers tray, cover with kitchen towel and let rise until very puffy. 3/4 to 1 inch in thickness. (20 minutes to 1 hour)

Preheat oven to 375* at this time.

Brush melted butter onto top of buns before placing in oven.** If desired, sesame  seeds can be sprinkled on tops but use egg white wash (egg white and a tablespoon of water) instead of butter and do not butter again after removing from oven

Place in oven on center rack.

Bake until light brown 12 to 15 minutes ( lightly browned, not super pale but not dark either)

Remove from oven and brush tops again with melted butter.

Cool completely and place in large plastic Zip lock bags. Refrigerate.