Homemade Hotdog/Hamburger Buns

My wife requested chili dogs for dinner. I love chili dogs, so I wanted to make them special. My wife joked with me that I'd end up making everything from scratch and I assured her I wouldn't. I even bought hotdog buns yesterday. 

But, as anyone who has read this blog knows, I rarely leave well enough alone.

So I'm making the buns myself! (Also making the chili, but that will be in the next post)

For some reason I get a lot of joy from making/baking bread. I like to see the subtle differences between each recipe. This is why I do this. 

Homemade Hotdog/Hamburger Buns (from here)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup butter

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (Divided (1.75C & 2.75C)

1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 egg

==

Put the milk, water and butter into a microwave safe bowl and nuke for about a minute. We're shooting for 120F. I did this in two, 30 second bursts and checked the temp with a thermometer. Yes. I obsess.

Meanwhile, get your dry ingredients (with the first installment of 1.75C of flour) into a mixing bowl. 

Add the milk/water mix.

Then add the beaten egg.

Mix for 30 seconds until it looks like loose pancake batter or not loose crêpe batter.

Start the mixer on #2 setting. Slowly add the remaining flour (2.75C) 1/2 cup at a time. Be careful not to blow flour all over the kitchen.

It'll get sticky real quick.

I switched out the paddle with the hook with a cup of flour left to add. It was just TOO sticky for the paddle.

Tag, Hook! You're in!

Add the rest of the flour and mix until the dough comes of the side of the bowl and crawls up the hook.

Turn this out onto a floured surface and start to knead.

We're shooting for 8 minutes thereabouts and a smooth texture.

I had to add a sprinkle of flour, top and bottom, about every minute. It kept getting sticky on me. 

When your time is up, place the dough in a covered and greased bowl to rise for an hour.

Bam! The power of yeast.

Turn out the dough again. I didn't use any flour.

Punch it down.

Now, the biggest pain if you're a little OCD.

We need to break this dough into 16 pieces. That means using a dough blade and scale if you're me as I can't stand if they're not (at least) close to the same weight.

Just cut it in half, then weigh each piece. Then pinch off bits until they're even. (I use the grams setting to get as close as possible) Cut in half again. Repeat.

Continue to cut each piece in half and weigh until you have 16.

Now, form the buns.

I did this really rough and I was in a hurry as my daughter was screaming for food (she's ravenous every hour these days) so these turned out "rustic" at best.

Just roll the hotdog buns into a tube.

I also made hamburger buns to experiment. Just roll them into balls and smash kind of flat.

Put them all onto a greased sheet pan.

Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Bake at 400F for about 12 minutes. At 10 minutes you should check for brownness.

It's totally cool that they stick together. They tear right apart.

Let cool on a rack until you want to eat them.

They turned out really good. Yeasty, light, but a bit more heavy that store bought buns, which I really liked.

These would be great with cold cuts, but they ache to be eaten as chili dogs. (Stand by for that recipe)

Enjoy!