Yep, that's about all there is to it. Scale the dough for the buns to about 2-1/2 ounces for small buns (it will bake to around 2-ounces which is equal to 2 servings of bread) and go up from there for larger ones. If you've never made burger buns before, oil your hands and form the 2-1/2 ounce piece of dough into a nice ball - make sure there aren't any air bubbles. Pat the dough flat - while still in your hands - to about 1/2-inch thick. As a general rule-of-thumb, the dough is about 1/3 of the finished size of the bun. Allow it to double in size during the final proof - that's about 2/3 of the finished size. The oven spring (the amount the dough continues rising in the oven) represents the last 1/3 of the finished size. If you want to make the dough into hot dog buns, roll the dough into a cylinder just a little larger than the meat you are using. Scale the first one so you'll know how much dough to use and all the rest of them will be the same size. Which makes them not only look good, but they will bake in the same amount of time and all be done at the same time. -Grainlady

I mill my own flour and make a 100% whole wheat bread recipe for hamburger and hot dog buns on a regular basis. I also use the same recipe for high-rising loaves of bread. The loaves or buns are just as light and fluffy as white bread because I use the SPONGE METHOD for making dough, instead of the much faster direct dough method - where all the ingredients are mixed together. An ingredient important in all bakers' yeast breads made with 100% whole wheat flour, or additions of wheat germ as an ingredient in the bread, that most people don't know about is ascorbic acid. There is a substance in wheat germ (which is a part of 100% whole wheat flour) called Glutathione which breaks down the gluten (which equals squatty short loaves). By adding ascorbic adic to your dough you will help to counteract the negative effects of Glutathione. Ascorbic acid will repair gluten bonds and will help sustain the leavening of the bread during baking. It also promotes yeast growth in the acidic atmosphere in which yeast grow best (1/8 t. ascorbic acid per loaf). (Note: Do not add ascorbic acid to naturally-leavened breads - aka sourdough - because it's naturally acidic and the ascorbic acid is unnecessary.) I let the sponge rest for at least 2-1/2-hours and up to 12-hours - covered in the bread machine or covered in a bowl if making it by hand. This allows the gluten in the flour to hydrate and the bran to soften. Bran in whole wheat flour can actually cut the gluten strands during kneading. It makes a big difference in texture, taste, and rise when working with 100% whole wheat flour if you use a sponge method and the addition of ascorbic acid powder. You don't say if the recipe was 100% whole wheat or a light wheat recipe (includes some unbleached/bleached all-purpose or bread flour). If you use a high-protein whole wheat flour, additional vital wheat gluten is entirely unnecessary!!! If you use whole wheat flour in combination with commercial bleached/unbleached all-purpose or bread flour, it's unnecessary because there's more than enough gluten in the white flour. If, by chance, the whole wheat flour you use was specifically for PASTRY, it is milled from low-protein soft wheat and not appropritate for making yeast breads. Additions of vital wheat gluten (where there is NOT a high-percentage of low-gluten or non-gluten flour) usually contributes to tough bread, not necessarily the rise of the bread. "Hocky Pucks" or "Bricks" are also a sign of not enough moisture in your breads - among the other things already mentioned. If you don't do a good job mixing the dough and developing the gluten while mixing and you toss out a shaggy lump of dough, then you didn't do the mixing slowly enough, or enough strokes used to slowly add the flour to the liquid. If you don't do a good job of kneading and add too much flour during kneading, then you chance making a dry dough which often makes "pucks". With bread dough, it's best to err on the side of a wet dough. Dry dough always equals a "brick" or "puck". You'll find my recipe at the link below. Post #2 in the thread. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: sponge method help please

Thanks Sooner...not making them just yet. LindaC: Define 'wrap them very very well'. You mean cool and wrap in plastic or wrap and store in air-tight container. I lack the baking gene so I need a lot of direction. Thanks, Sue

Enjoy your family recipe! How much dough depends on how large or small (or somewhere in between) you want the buns. I weigh my dough balls on a scale so I have equal-sized buns. Using this method your buns will bake to the same size in the same amount of time. For small luncheon rolls - between 1-1/2 or 2-ounces. Just go up from there in 1/2 to 1-ounce increments until you get the size you want. Probably around 2-1/2 to 3-ounces will work well for most burgers. After you've formed the dough into a round ball (making sure any air bubbles are worked out), pat it into a nice round about 1/2-inch thick. I use my muffin top pans (6 to a pan - the holes are about 1/2-inch deep) to bake my large hamburger buns, and I have another pan (12-holes on the pan) for small buns. You can place them onto greased cookie sheets, or cover with parchment paper. The shallow pans I use give them a nice structure and they remain nice and round. Cover with plastic wrap for the last rise. Your recipe makes a LOT of dough and you may find you need to retard a portion of the dough (covered), or the formed buns on cookie sheets (and covered with plastic wrap), in the refrigerator in order to prevent the dough from over-proofing waiting for room in the oven. You'll have several cookie sheets and you'll want to bake them one sheet at a time, unless you have a convection oven. You could use the recipe for making more than one thing - burger buns, hot dog buns, and cinnamon rolls - all from the one recipe. Take your leftover burger buns, slice them, and wrap in a sheet of foil (I get pop-up sheets of foil at Sam's Club that work perfectly for this). I also like to add deli-sliced ham to the buns and freeze them. Pop the foil-wrapped Ham Buns in the toaster oven for 15-20-minutes for a quick lunch. Handle the dough with oiled hands, instead of flour. If you have a Silpat (or other silicon mat) place your dough on it for forming (loaf, buns, cinnamon rolls, etc.) and you won't require any bench flour if you handle the dough with oiled hands. You can also spray your counter with PAM for forming dough without using any bench flour (remember to oil your hands). Another way to figure "how much", a serving of bread is 1-ounce and a hamburger bun is supposed to equal 2-servings. There is some loss of weight from moisture drying during baking, so around 2-1/4 to 2-1/2-ounces will probably end up around 2-ounces when baked. Yet one more way... You can take the total weight of the dough and divide it by 3 and you'll probably be good-to-go. Four cups of flour in a recipe should equal approx. 2-pounds of dough or 32-ounces. Divided by 3-ounces per roll is 10.6 rolls. Divide by 2.5 and you'll get about a dozen. If you make the dough into cinnamon rolls or sticky buns, 1.5 pounds of dough will equal 12 rolls. Roll the dough 12-inches wide by however thin you want your dough (about 1/2-inch thick usually suggested to maintain the structure). Add your cinnamon-sugar - but don't add any fat - there is more than enough fat from your hands when you patted the dough out, and roll the dough into a log. Using a 12-inch ruler as a guide, manipulate your dough log to approx. 12-inches wide. Take a sharp knife and nick your dough log every 1-inch using the ruler as a guideline. Take a length of dental floss and use it to cut your dough on the 1-inch marks. Slide the floss under the end of the dough, bring the ends up to the top and crisscross the ends, pull the floss to cut through the dough log. If you want to make quick sticky-pecan rolls, grease/spray your muffin pans, add about 1-T. honey or agave nectar (just barely enough to cover the bottom of the muffin cup) and top with chopped pecans. Add one cinnamon roll on top, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise to double. Don't be too generous with the honey in the muffin cups or you will find it spilling over the pans into your oven. Back to the topic... This is the general rule-of-thumb for most yeast breads when you want to figure what size it will be... The dough is approximately 1/3 of the finished size. You allow it to double in size before you place it in the oven, so that accounts for 2/3 of the finished size. The remaining 1/3 is from oven-spring, the amount the dough continues to rise in the oven. Now you can "eyeball" the finished size of any amount of dough you want to use for loaves, rolls, hot dog buns, etc... For hot dog buns, roll the dough to the size (or just a bit larger) and shape of the hot dog you are going to be using. -Grainlady