We forgot to buy some bread for the week for lunches and such so I decided I’d give my hand at making a burger bun to use for sandwiches.  I perused a few different recipes online and cobbled together my own version as below.

Ingredients:

• Warm milk – 1.5 cups
• Egg – 1 large
• Melted butter – 4 Tbsp
• Sugar – 2 Tbsp
• Active Dry Yeast – 1 Tbsp
• Salt – 1.5 tsp
• Whole wheat flour – 3 cups
• All-purpose flour – 1.5 cups

1.  Mix warm milk, egg, melted butter, sugar, and yeast in a bowl and incorporate  until frothy.  Let sit for 5-10 minutes.
2.  In a separate bowl, mix the 2 types of flours and the salt.
3.  Add wet to dry and mix.
4.  Dump mixture onto countertop and knead for 5-7 minutes.
5.  Form into ball and place in oiled bowl and allow to rise (double in size) – ~45 min to 2 hours.
6.  Punch down, pour onto countertop and separate into 8-10 pieces.
7.  Let rest for 10 minutes before forming into balls.
8.  Form each piece into a ball and then flattened to get more hamburger bun shape.
9.  Allow to rise (mine didn’t rise as much as I’d like).
10.  Apply egg wash to each bun.
11.  Pre-heat oven to 380 F
12.  Place in oven and cook for 15-20 minutes (I did 19 minutes).
13.  Cover with kitchen towel for 15 minutes – I read this is supposed to help keep the bread rolls soft.

Overall these came out okay.  I was hoping for wider and fluffier buns.  They turned out a bit dense and dry.  I baked them late at night (made them after work) and so left them out overnight to cool and that may have definitely contributed to the drying.  I made 2 of them for sandwiches for lunch today and noted that one of the buns did crumble and fall apart some.  I attribute that to the dryness.  I suspect another part of the denseness may be because I did not knead the dough enough initially to allow for proper gluten formation.  Another problem may be that I did not allow for proper rise times.  Our house typically is fairly cool and during winter time it is cooler, leading to a longer rise time (which I did not have because I have to sleep).

I’ll probably try something similar again in the future but maybe see if I can’t make it fluffier and less dense.

-StewsCat