Friday, June 10, 2005

Hamburger Buns

Hamburger Buns (Adapted from Canadian Living)

1 cup milk
1 cup water
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

Egg wash

1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

In a small saucepan, add milk, 1 cup water, sugar, butter and salt. Heat over low just until the butter melts - cool to lukewarm.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 cups flour with the yeast.

Pour the milk mixture into a large mixing bowl. Mix in the flour/yeast mixture, 1 cup at a time, until all 3 cups are in, beating until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make stiff dough.

Scoop the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 8-10 minutes), adding enough of the remaining flour to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. Move dough into a large bowl lightly coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 60 minutes.

Uncover and punch down the dough. Evenly divide into 12-16 pieces, depending on how large you want the buns to be. Form each piece into a tight ball and place about 2" apart on a parchment lined baking sheet - you may need to use 2 sheets depending on the size. Slightly flatten each ball. Cover and let rise until doubled - another 30 to 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400

In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolk and water. Gently brush egg wash over each bun.

Bake about 20-25 minutes, until golden and they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

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29 comments:

  1. Have you tried the King Arthur White Whole Wheat? It is delicious, great flavor, not as dense a texture as their other whole wheat flour. Thanks for the bun formula! Love your blog.
    Ciao, Christine

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  2. La Vida - I have! I've used it several times before, but I don't always have it on hand.

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  3. I will definitely be trying this recipe. I don't have a bun pan but I have made some "freeform" hamburger buns and they are so much better than the store-bought ones. I have been looking for a new recipe though! I also use King Arthur flours so I might experiment and try some with all-purpose and some with the new organic white whole wheat (which should be arriving shortly!). Thanks for sharing :-)

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  4. Nicole - I didn't use a pan for these either - and I agree, they are so much better than store-bought!

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  5. Joe,

    What would your tips/recommendation be for High Altitude baking? I'm about 7,500 feet up, so things that involve yeast are always a bit finiky. Any ideas? The hamburger buns do look great!

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  6. Hi Jenna - I would suggest checking out this site for some good tips!

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  7. Hi Joe!

    Thanks for the recipe. I have been playing with bun recipes for a couple of months and this one produced what I was after.

    I have food issues so I had to make a few modifications. I used mostly white spelt flour but had to fill in with some Kamut to make up the volume required. During kneading I had to even grab some oat flour because I simply didn't have enough. I used ghee in place of butter and I used goat milk.

    They turned out great! They held up to the burger just fine... no crumbling bun.

    I grilled up some turkey burgers and topped them with grilled onions and mushrooms (shhh there was a minced garlic clove in the mix) and topped that off with a slice of Trader Joe's yogurt cheese. I "buttered" up the buns with a little ghee and grilled them slightly and I slathered on my homemade whole grain mustard before I assembled my burger.

    Your recipe inspired me to adapt a "star" system to mark my favorite recipes. This one is a winner.

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  8. VJ - I'm happy to hear you were able to modify them to fit your needs! I make these at least once a month now - they are so good!

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  9. Hi Joe,

    Thanks for a great recipe. I made a few changes because I'm vegan and also live across the pond so our flours are not quite the same.

    I made half the recipe, using 2 cups of strong flour and 5/8 cup of plain flour. (I had to knead in more plain flour as the dough was very sticky.)

    Also, I used regular active dry yeast, and proved it in the warm water first.

    I substituted rapeseed oil for the butter and soya milk for the dairy milk. Instead of the egg wash, I brushed the buns with rapeseed oil before baking.

    We had them with homemade veggie burgers and they were excellent. The only change I would make next time would be to grease the parchment paper so they don't stick.

    Hamburger buns aren't readily available here (and the few similar buns I've seen are full of chemicals and hydrogenated oil), so this recipe was exactly what I was looking for.

    Cheers!

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  10. Pandora - Thanks for your feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the buns - I make these so often!

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  11. Joe, these buns are great! I subbed 1 1/4 c WWW flour, and I got 18 buns out of the recipe. They are a good size right now. but in the future I may make them a little bigger. By the way, mine looked as good as your photos.

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  12. Vbak - Awesome! Thanks for letting me know... I make these quite often now!

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  13. LOL I just went to tag this recipe to del.icio.us and it was already on my list! They still look delicious! : )

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  14. Susan - they are! Jeff keeps on top of the supply in the freezer, so I will always know when we are low!

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  15. I tried making these this week, and the second rise just didn't work for me. They did rise a little, but once I uncovered them(the parchment paper kind of stuck to the tops), they deflated. Should the second rise be in a warm place as well(I usually heat to oven to 200, then turn off and let stuff rise in the oven).

    Also should the balls be relatively small? Because when I formed the balls, the automatically flatten out.

    They only thing I did differently from your recipe is use one cup of bread flour, because I ran out of all-purpose. Would this have really made a difference?

    The bread tasted pretty good, just didn't rise enough to be sliced in half for buns.

    Any advise you could give me would be much appreciated.

    Thanks
    Intisar

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  16. Intisar - A couple of things.

    I wouldn't cover them with parchment paper at all - I would use lightly greased plastic wrap or a cover. You don't want them to stick or they will deflate as you found out.

    They should rise in a warm place, but not too warm - around 70-80 degrees work best, but if it is cooler that is okay too, it will just take them a little longer to rise. If you do it too warm it might kill the yeast or they will rise too fast and you won't get much flavor.

    The balls should not "flatten" out by themselves, that sounds like the dough might have been too wet and you might have not used enough flour to support it.

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  17. I made these this afternoon. The dough was easy to work with and rose very well. (I used active dry yeast.) The buns turned out very nicely - quite substantial, with a somewhat hard crust and a soft inside. Next time I'll use a little whole wheat flour for some more flavor.

    Thanks for the recipe!

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  18. Jamie - I hope we got you hooked! I make these often and keep them in the freezer to have on hand as needed!

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  19. Your kidding me! I swear every time I check out you recipes its what I was looking for. Once again I am going to get some fresh ground whole wheat from my dad and make these.
    Thank!

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  20. Kimmy - Let us know how they turn out!

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  21. Hi Joe,
    Ur hamburger buns look awesome. Dying to try out this recipe. Can u advise 1 cup flour in this recipe refers to 4 oz or 5 oz flour?

    Thks,
    Susanna, Australia

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  22. Susanna - start out with 4.5 oz per cup. You may need slightly more or less, depending on the humidity, so just hold back a little and add more if needed.

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  23. Thanks for the great recipe. I googled "hamburger bun recipes" yesterday and found your blog. Had great success making these. Definitely a keeper! Which is really important here in Paris, where hamburger buns are nearly impossible to find! Thanks again for sharing the recipe.

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  24. GCinParis - I'm glad you found our site! Thanks for giving this buns a try - I made them once or twice a month. They freeze quite well.

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  25. Hi Joe, I made these again (2nd time in 2 months). Yum! is all I can say.

    I tried to email you, but "the operation failed"...so I'll just post my question. Would you mind if I posted your recipe on my blog? A lot of people are asking me for it. I'll give you total credit. I converted everything to metric for use over here, and I proof the yeast first to make sure it's OK (only because we've had our dried yeast for over 3 yrs & I want to make sure it's still gonna work!). Those are the only changes I made. Pls let me know if you're open to this. Has anyone asked you this before? Thanks, Diane

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  26. GCinParis - that sounds fine to me.

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  27. Great - check it out if you want!

    girlcookinparis.blogspot.com

    You'll find it under Recipes - bread.

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  28. Hello I will try this recipe today, I tell you my exerience later...

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  29. Can you make any recommendations for gluten free baking? I have Celiac Disease, and need some good recipes...

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