Scenes from My Pantry: Homemade Hamburger Buns
PUBLISHED ON: 05.29.2024
Homemade Hamburger Buns
Recipe from King Arthur Baking
Lately, I have found myself drawn to baking bread. The baking process induces a sense of calm in my monkey brain. The tactile experience of kneading dough feels grounding, and unlike my other daily tasks, baking bread has clear beginning, middle, and end with a rewarding outcome. There are some days you really need this in your life.
After traveling for three weeks, we had a craving for a grilled burger. We had no buns! Since I was needing to reconnect to my sense of home, I turned to my reliable King Arthurs website and found an easy-to-follow recipe for hamburger buns, which could also be used for sandwiches or toast. The recipe provided a lot of flexibility, so I used half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour. I weighed each dough piece to 97 grams, though next time I plan to increase it to 100 grams and topped the buns with ‘Everything Bagel’ seasoning. While I rarely achieve visual bread perfection, I could see improvement with each subsequent roll, proving with practice it becomes more visually perfect.
If you need or want to embark on your own bread baking journey there are a million ways to make good bread and plenty of good books and reputable internet sources. My go-to is the King Arthur baking website.
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
4-1/2 teaspoons (14 grams) instant yeast or active dry yeast
1/2 cup (113 grams), water warm (105 F- 115F)
2 cups (454g) milk, warm (105-115F)
2 Tablespoons (27g) vegetable oil
2 teaspoon salt
6-7-1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (720-900g)
*note- I combined all-purpose flour with equal parts of whole wheat flour
1 large egg beaten with one tablespoon water
(egg wash)
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, caraway seeds, coarse salt (optional).
Directions:
To mix the dough: In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar and then the yeast in the warm water. Add the milk, oil, salt and 3 cups (360g) of flour to the yeast mixture. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes.
Gradually add flour, 1/4 cup (30g) at a time, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.
Knead until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Because this dough is so slack, you may find that a bowl scraper or bench knife can be helpful in scooping up the dough and folding it over on itself.
Put the dough into an oiled bowl. Turn once to coat the entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a tightly-woven dampened towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface. Divide into 18 equal pieces. This is done most easily by dividing the dough first into thirds, then those thirds into halves, then the halves into thirds.
Shape each piece into a ball. For hamburger buns, flatten the balls into 3 1/2″ disks. For hot-dog buns, roll the balls into cylinders, 4 1/2″ in length. Flatten the cylinders slightly; dough rises more in the center so this will give a gently rounded top versus a high top.
For soft-sided buns, place them on a well-seasoned baking sheet a half inch apart so they’ll grow together when they rise. For crisper buns, place them 3″ apart.
For the second rising, cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.
Fifteen minutes before you want to bake your buns, preheat your oven to 400Β°F. Just before baking, lightly brush the tops of the buns with the egg wash and sprinkle with whatever seeds strike your fancy.
To bake the buns:Β Bake for 20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread reaches 190Β°F when measured with a digital thermometer.
When the buns are done, remove them from the baking sheet to cool on a wire rack. This will prevent the crust from becoming soggy.
Split the buns in half and toast or griddle before serving, as desired. Store leftover buns at room temperature in an airtight container for several days, or freeze for longer storage.
Β
David Scott Allen
Velva β King Arthur is definitely my go-to source for baking questions and recipes! Your buns look beautiful. Funny thing? The day after we got home from Paris, I decided I wanted to make burgers, too, for Memorial Day Weekend ,,, and we were bunless, as well. A batch of buns and two small loaves later we were ready to go.
Joel M Greene
Smiling at David’s comment about your beautiful looking buns.
Mimi Rippee
They βre perfect! Love the topping.
angiesrecipes
Rustic and wonderful!
jeanie
I’m sharing this with my resident bread baker, Rick. They look wonderful!
Ronit Penso
The buns look so tasty! The topping must have added so much flavor and crunch. π
Larry
Hard to beat good homemade bread.
sherry
yes indeed your buns look lovely. I am not a bread baker and admire those who do π
cheers
sherry
mae
THey must be totally superior to industrial buns!
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Jeff the Chef
Thank you for this! I’m planning a summer barbecue, and I’d love to make homemade buns!
Judee
I used to enjoy bread making when we spent our winters in Pennsylvania . Now that we leave beginning of October for Florida, the warm weather and small condo kitchen is not conducive to bread making. Anyway- your rolls do look lovely and there is nothing like homemade bread!
Frank | Memorie di Angelina
Hats off to you for making your own hamburger buns. I”m not sure I’d have the patience or the skills, but I’m sure these beat store bought by a mile.
Marcelle
I enjoy King Arthur’s website too, so much delicious inspiration there. Your hamburger buns look great! Love the wheat flour and everything bagel seasoning sprinkled on top. I also use a recipe from their website for hamburger buns when I make them, but it’s another version that doesn’t call for milk. I printed it out in 2020 and I had it all ready to share about in a post on my blog, pics and all done. I never published the post for some reason lol (probably because… 2020!). I need to revisit that one π I hope y’all have a wonderful trip, Velva!
Eva Taylor
Homemade burger buns are the best, and it’s nice you added a little texture with the whole wheat flour. I must get myself some everything bagel seasoning next time I am in the US.