Hot dog (hamburger) buns

For the 4th of July, we decided to do the ultra-traditional hamburgers and hot dogs.  I decided I’d like to try  my hand at making hot dog buns.  I had previously made some burger buns from a random recipe I found online.  I didn’t realize that you can use the same formula for both hot dog and hamburger buns.  This time I found another recipe on a random blog.  For the most part I followed the recipe that was laid out (since this was my first time making it).  I amended it due to the fact that I don’t have a stand mixer and therefore have to do all my mixing/kneading by hand.  The recipe called for letting the dough rest in the fridge for up to 24 hours so I made up the dough the night before July 4th.

Ingredients:

• 500g All purpose flour
• ½ cup warm milk
• ¾ cup warm water
• 2 tsp yeast
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp butter (can use butter as well)
• extra oil to oil the bowl
• 1 egg for the egg-wash

First I mixed up the flour, yeast, salt and sugar.

In a separate container, I whisked together the milk, water, and egg to create a yellow liquid.

I then combined the dry and wet ingredients and dumped it out onto the counter to do the slap and fold method of  kneading.  This was a fairly wet dough so the slap and fold method was probably my only shot at getting the dough kneaded to a proper stage.  After about 5 minutes of kneading, I then started to incorporate the butter in.  I had let cut the 2 Tbsp of butter into smaller pieces and let it come to room temperature.  This was a bit tricky as the butter would push out through the dough as I kneaded.  The butter started to warm up with my hands and the kneading causing the dough to become a bit oily but after about 10 minutes of kneading, the oiliness went away and the dough came together.  The dough ball was placed in a lightly oiled bowl and then refrigerated overnight.

The morning of the 4th (after about 15-16 hours of rest) the dough had about doubled.

I dumped this out onto a lightly floured countertop and rolled the dough out into about 16 inches by 7 inches.  I then split this up into 8 pieces (the recipe said to do 6 pieces if you were making hamburger buns).

I took each individual piece and folded it on itself and flattened it out into a rough rectangular shape.  I also made a few into round hamburger bun shapes.  Two of these I placed onto a small cookie sheet and put in the freezer.  You can take these out later and let them rise and then bake.  The remainder I placed onto a large parchment covered sheet pan to rise (around an hour).

I set the oven to 350 F about 30 minutes prior to the end of the rise (1 hour).  Then I baked the hotdog buns for 25 minutes (the original recipe said 15-20 minutes but I think mine were a little bigger so took longer…also may be due to the difference in ovens).

The inside turned out perfectly done.

I grilled up some hot dogs for lunch.

For dinner, we made some buffalo sliders with some corn.

Once it got dark, we walked over to a nearby park where you can watch a big fireworks display.  It was fairly crowded but we were still able to see fairly well.  The show lasted about 15 minutes.

-StewsCat