Fast and Easy Hot Dog Buns.

I have this thing for buns at the moment. No idea why. It's just one of those "I want" kinda things.

Anyway, I have been having a real hankering for some fast food lately. Mickey D's, Kentucky Freud Chicken, etc - but I really don't like how unwell it makes one feel after eating it. Excessive salt, excessive fat and really - for what it's worth - limited flavour and huge prices.

How to get around this? Easy! Home made hot dogs!

I confess that commercial frankfurters (or what is passed off as a frank at supermarkets) are pretty tasteless, full of preservatives and overall, not that wholesome and healthy at all. However, as a hot dog with fried onions, cheese, hot mustard and some ketchup (real ketchup - not 'tomato sauce') they become a thing of yummy mysticism. Fast and easy feed on a winter afternoon.

You decide how you want your dogs - I'm just going to show you how to make the buns!

Quick'n'easy Hot Dog Buns:

First up, this is a back-to-front recipe when it comes to making the dough. This recipe is designed for people who use a dough-capable piece of machinery, but not a bread maker. If you already make bread by hand, then you know what to do and I won't waste time telling you.

This is a potato bread. Those lovely little buns that were praised so highly in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle are potato bread. You can go nuts with the recipe for that exact type if you want - use your Google-fu. This is something a bit different.


* 125 ml warm water in the machine chamber
* 2 tablespoons yeast
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
** Mix well on lowest speed for about two or three minutes to get some oxygen into the mix and help those yeasties reproduce.
* Allow this to sit while you peel a medium potato, boil it and mash it with a little milk to make a sloppy potato mash.
* Break two eggs into the yeast mixture.
* Add the quantity of potato mash
** Mix well on lowest speed for a couple of minutes. This evens out the temperature of the mix.
* Add flour. It will be somewhere over 550 grams. You will need to use your experience with your machine to be your guide here as to what is enough or too much. Being a wettish dough, it's easy to go too far either way. Experiment. Have fun.
* Lightly oiled bowl, warm place, cover with cling wrap, wait twenty minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
* Don't knock it down! Just turn it out onto a well floured work surface and divide it into eight pieces.
* Shape those pieces into hot dog bun shape and place in a medium to tall sided baking pan, lined with lightly oiled greaseproof paper.
* Allow to rise twenty minutes more.
* Preheat your oven to 180C fan forced.
* Sprinkle a little olive oil on top, spray lightly with water, decorate with sesame seeds, spray a bit more heavily with water.
* Bake fifteen minutes or until nicely coloured up on top.
* Cool on a rack for around twenty minutes before separating for storage or eating.

This makes for a reasonably damp kind of bun. If you like them to be less wet, increase the cooking time to 18 or even twenty minutes. The lack of punching down and kneading ahead of shaping leaves a fairly coarse bubble structure in the bread which is great for soaking up all those yummy sauces.

Enjoy!!

Cheers!!