Homemade Hamburger Buns
The other day I was planning on burgers for lunch, but I was out of hamburger buns and wanted to save a trip to the store. I decided to give homemade buns a try. The following recipe is loosely based on one from Recipezaar. These buns rose nice and fluffy, and gave our regular hamburgers a gourmet feel. My family liked these much better than regular store bread, and enjoyed the leftover buns the next morning in fried egg sandwiches.
HOMEMADE HAMBURGER BUNS
Makes 24 buns
Preparation Time: 2.5 hours (mostly rising)
Ingredients
- 2 cups hot tap water
- 2 cups milk (warmed in microwave for a couple minutes)
- 2 tablespoons yeast
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup masa (finely ground corn flour– or use regular corn meal)
- 1/2 c. wheat germ (optional)
- 8-10 c. white flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Sesame seeds and melted butter for tops of buns
Directions
Warm milk in the microwave for a couple minutes, til it is about the temperature of hot tap water. (Between 100 and 115 degrees F.) In a medium sized bowl, combine water, milk, sugar, and yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes. Yeast should foam up a bit on top of the liquid. Melt butter and add to liquid.
In a large bowl measure wheat germ, masa or corn meal, and 6 cups of the flour. Stir to combine. Add wet ingredients, stirring first with a spoon and then with oiled hands. As you knead, keep the remaining 3 cups of flour handy, gradually adding as much flour as it takes to make a smooth elastic dough.
Let dough rise for 30-60 minutes in an oiled bowl. Punch down dough and divide in half. Roll out first half of dough about 1 inch thick on a floured countertop. Using an inverted glass or an empty tuna can as a cutter, cut each half into twelve 3-4 inch rounds. Place on greased baking sheet. Brush with melted butter, sprinkling with sesame seeds as desired.
Repeat with second half of the dough. Or if you wish, you can bake half the dough one day, and leave the rest of the dough in the fridge for up to 5 days to be baked later.
Once buns are formed, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about one hour. Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned on the top.
I liked your old format better!!!
I hope you decided to make humber buns for lunch at a very early AM as these would take a very long time to make. Good, yes; but yeast is not a quick option.
These look delicious–I will have to try them! (My mother-in-law already thinks I’m crazy for making so much food from scratch—this will really confuse her! lol)
I started this recipe at 10:30 and we ate lunch at 1. The rising does take time. But the hands-on work for this recipe is no more than 30 minutes. And the result– way better than store-bought!
Besides the no-knead, overnight artisan breads, most yeast breads are best made by people who are at home for a few hours of the day. Even so, most people can still do it. I wouldn’t consider it a timesaver though unless you are already at home. Like Mary says, the hands-on time isn’t much, the results are better, and I personally hate grocery stores and labels and lineups at tills.
Yum! I will have to try these.
Thanks for sharing this recipe, I’ve been making our hambuger bums since September from just an egg bread recipe but they always end up rising too tall in the oven. We only have hamburger once a month but I may have them early just to try this!! Thanks.
Hugs,
Heidi
[...] When you run out of something, write it on your grocery list. But don’t race to the store the instant your list gets an item or two on it. Every trip to the store is a temptation to impulse-buy. So I challenge myself to go just a day or two longer between shopping trips. We live 20 minutes from the store. The other day when I didn’t want to run to the store just for hamburger buns, I made my own fresh homemade rolls. [...]