Classic Hamburger Buns

My husband has a favorite hamburger roll from when we was growing up. I learned how to make and it is been our standard roll now for at least 25 years. But I was looking for something new. Drives him crazy…although he does enjoy sampling my baking attempts.

 

 

I really wanted to find a bun recipe that I could make full size buns as well as slider buns. Something that was super simple, versatile, and still tasty and makes you want to more.

 

 

I found a fun recipe that hits the mark. We initially used it to make sliders and it worked really well. Then we tried full size burgers and again, it was a hit. These can be used for all sorts of things; burgers, sloppy joes, pulled pork, even ham or turkey sub sandwiches.

 

 

The recipe is written for full size buns, but if you’re making sliders you’ll divide the dough into 24 rolls. It’s alright to place them closer together so they get a nice “tear” on the sides of the finished roll. You can do this for the full size buns as well. It’s totally up to how you like to eat your buns.

 

 

 

Classic Hamburger Buns

 

¾ c water, warmed to 110-115

2 ¼ tsp (1 packet) yeast

¾ c milk (I use 2%)

¼ c canola oil

4 eggs

¼ c sugar

2 ½ tsp salt

6-7 c flour

 

Measure the milk and water together and warm to 110-115 degrees. Place the yeast and a tsp of sugar into your mixing bowl. Add the warmed water-milk and let it rise a bit while getting the rest of the ingredients together.

 

Prep your oil, sugar, salt, eggs, and 2 c of flour. Add them to the mixer bowl that’s fitted with a dough hook and turned to a low setting (my kitchenaid is set at speed 2). Once those are mixed together, continue to add a cup of flour at a time. Use a spatula to push the dough off the edges and into the bowl. Once your dough is pulling from the edge of the bowl, stop the mixer and turn the dough out onto a floured surface (it should have a little bit of stickiness to it still, but it should hold its shape well and be easy to knead).

 

Knead to dough for another 5-8 minutes by hand. Add flour as needed. Continue to knead until there is good elasticity to it. You shouldn’t have any more dough stuck to your hands as this point, and as a little test, if you pinch and pull, it should bounce back.  

 

Place the ball of dough into a greased bowl, cover it with towels and leave it to rise for about an hour in a warm place. Turn the oven on to 375F and have 2 half sheet pans ready with silpats or parchment that’s been sprayed with oil.

 

After it has doubled in size, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and cut the dough into 16 equal balls. Use the palm of your hand to shape each of the balls evenly. Press the center down slightly to widen the ball a bit, making for a better bun. Place 8 on each pan, being sure to space them out evenly.

 

Once all of the buns have been formed, cover with towels and allow them to rise once more for about an hour. They should double in size. Brush each bun with water before placing the pan in the oven. Bake them for 14-16 minutes. Pull them out and immediately remove them from the pan and onto a cooling rack. You can brush each roll with butter to help soften their tops a bit, but this is optional. Repeat this with the second tray.

 

These are fantastic as hamburger buns, pulled pork sandwiches, and can also be made into smaller slider buns. Also, they freeze wonderfully. Once they’ve completely cooled. Place them in sealable bags and keep them in the freezer for up with 3 months. Thaw them on the counter or in the microwave for a minute or so. They are excellent! 

 

Cowboy Stars Quilt

What can I say about western fabric, I just love it! I love the colors, and the patterns, and the ranch life style it portrays. The bummer about this is, I don’t actually make a ton of western quilts.

 

My mom went through her stash to do a major cleanout and I came home with even more of these beautiful cuts. I made a wonderful log cabin with one batch, and a fussy-cut baby quilt with some more. But with more still to work with, I decided to try making some stars.

 

I started with some small stars. I wasn’t sure what my plan was or what I was going to do with the stars, but it was fun to make these small stars… at first.

I quickly realized this was going to take a long time. I also realized I needed to incorporate more colors, and more sizes. I went through all of the fabrics that I thought would work well in this project. Then I broke them up into pairs; a dark and a light.

 I made sets of stars in the colors and broke all of the stars into dark and light piles. Then I just randomly matched stars together and started sewing pairs. Once the pairs were together, I made bigger stars and sewed all that together. I tried to be as random and unintentional as I could be, which is super hard for me.

 

Getting all of the stars put together was a challenge, but I was super happy with the random look of the finished product. It felt like it needed something to frame it, and to make the top a little bigger, so I added a navy strip and then some of the blue from the stars.

 

The backing is my attempt to use up the random large fabric pieces I have left from previous backings. It’s really a fun theme with wildwest cowboys wrangling up the longhorn bulls. It’s a very large print that is lost when cut into small pieces. But it looks super cool as a backing. I didn’t have enough so I countered it with a grey striped fabric.

 Once again, I did a basic meander for this quilt. The scrappy nature seemed to be perfect for that type of quilting. I had some pink fabric left over from the top of the quilt and I used that for the binding. I finished it with a label and called it done. The cats were pleased, but I’m thinking it will be perfect for our bed in the camper.

 

 I was so happy to get to use up a bunch of the western fabrics I’ve collected for so many years. I still have a ton to go, so hopefully there will be more western quilts in the future.