So, last week we decided, for the first time in a long time, to start working with ground meat. We made a meatloaf which, while not as good as my old standby Lipton soup recipe, was decently tasty. The recipe called for a mix of sirloin and chuck, which proved to be slightly difficult to find in the correct proportions - I had to get 1/3 pound more sirloin than needed. What else is there to do with more sirloin than mix it with some ground bison (which I just happened to pick up) than make burgers, which I had been craving for a couple of days. Well, the problem with burgers is that we rarely have bread on hand, since we don't eat it on a regular basis, and when we have it, it disappears quickly, and what good is a burger without a bun? So, I searched and came up with this great recipe. Thanks to Charlene Kaunert for posting this recipe at AllRecipes
- Tasty Buns
- 5 c flour
- 4½ tsp bread machine (instant) yeast
- 1 c milk
- ¾ c water
- ½ c vegetable oil
- ¼ c sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- Stir together 2 cups flour and the yeast. In a separate bowl, heat milk, water, oil, sugar and salt to lukewarm in microwave. Add all at once to the flour mixture, and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes.
- Mix in enough flour to make a soft dough, 2 to 3 cups. Mix well. Dust a flat surface with flour, turn dough out onto floured surface, and let rest under bowl for about 10 minutes.
- Shape dough into 12 slightly flat balls, and place on greased baking sheet to rise until doubled in size.
- Bake in a preheated 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) oven for 12 to 15 minutes.
Apparently the mixer thought the floor made a great surface.
I will say that these turned out extremely well - I didn't grease the pan, but instead used parchment paper. I probably would also try (when making these again) brushing the tops with egg or milk - they just didn't have the color I was looking for. However, they were extremely soft and pretty good as burger buns, though they turned out a little flat for me (maybe I didn't let them rise long enough, or maybe our yeast is starting to get old…).
So, though the burger recipe wasn't that great (sorry Elise, I just don't think rosemary, especially in that quantity, is all that appealing), the buns were fantastic.
One final note - when storing these, let them breathe. I stored in an air tight container on the counter, and apparently when Jess opened it up, the air inside was warm and moist - a great environment for growing moldy. Fortunately for us, Jess opened it the next day and these disappeared completely within a couple days flat.
