I don't roll out the dough. I just pat it out gently, so it's about a half inch thick. Then I cut it in half, and in half again, till there are eight roughly equal-size pieces. I take each one and fold the piece in on itself, turning the outsides under so it's more or less a ball, and then I place it between my hands, palms up, on a lightly floured surface and kind of twirl it around by pushing in on the bottom using the sides of my hands, till the bottom is tucked under and rounded off. It's really hard to describe this! If you look at the bottoms of the shaped buns at this point, they don't necessarily look neat, but they fill in as they rise, so just get them rounded and tucked. The twirling motion helps to tighten the skin around the bun--that's the gluten cloak that gives them their shape.

I tried using a cutter once, but it didn't work nearly as well as shaping them by hand.

I just found a video--this person rolls the dough in one hand, which looks easier than the way I do it. As long as you create some surface tension on the outside of the dough ball, you should be good to go.

Here is a link that might be useful: rolling buns (an ambiguous title for sure)

When I made buns; first I made a ball, then mushed them with my fingers into a 3 inch round about 1 inch high. After the rise time and baking mine looked like this.

Linda

I post pictures about once every decade, so I always forget how to embed them. But I baked these today for tonight's dinner, so I thought I should make the effort. They're the King Arthur recipe, with whole wheat flour subbed for some of the white. As you can see (or maybe not), we really like poppy seeds!

{{gwi:1526686}}

Mine are the KA recipe too!!!
Next time I'll sub some WWF..

Linda

Everyone your buns look like perfection! Would one of you please post your recipe, I know I've seen it and thought I cut and pasted it, but now I can't find it! TIA Gina

Here you go, Gina.

Beautiful Burger Buns

* 3/4 to 1 cup lukewarm water
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 large egg
* 3 1/2 cups (14 3/4 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
* 1/4 (1 3/4 ounces) cup sugar
* 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
* 1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1) Mix and knead all of the dough ingredientsÂby hand, mixer, or bread machineÂto make a soft, smooth dough.

2) Cover the dough, and let it rise for 1 hour, or until it's doubled in bulk.

3) Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round 1" thick (more or less); flatten to about 3" across. Place the buns on a lightly greased baking sheet, cover, and let rise for about an hour, until very puffy.

4) If desired, brush buns with melted butter. Or brush lightly with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water), and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

5) Bake the buns in a preheated 375°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, till golden. Cool on a rack.

I let the bread machine knead the dough for me, so the actual amount of work involved is about five minutes to shape the buns--less if you do it according to their instructions, which are easier. Also, I usually use roughly one-third whole wheat flour by weight instead of all white.

These make great burger buns, but they're also delicious all-around sandwich buns.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bodacious Buns

Thank you so much Maureen, they are just beautiful!
Gina

Nice looking pictures of hamburger buns. I bet they are good! Nothing better then homemade buns with a burger cooked on the grill - IMO.

I am no longer a bun virgin! You folks inspired me to try them. I have a bread machine that I used to use many many years ago, back when I had a metabolism. LOL

All these posts about yeasts and how forgiving dough is made me brave. I figured I would give it a shot with the recipe in this thread. I used the bread machine to mix the dough. I confess that I never even thought about using the dough cycle, always baked the bread in the machine.

I poured the ingredients in, walked away for 1:30 came back and dumped it on the counter and made cute little balls (thanks for the video link). Came back 1 hour later and baked these delicious rolls! Oh yeah, my yeast expired in May, I used it anyway. No problem.

We are such city slickers and my Mom and her Mother were not cooks. So the most amusing part of making these rolls is my Mom saying "Wow you can do that? Make hamburger buns at home?" She was pretty funny. After they were done she kept touching them saying "I'll be darned, aren't they beautiful?"

Here they are after 5 minutes of hands on.

The results

How easy was that? I think I'll leave the bread machine out. Thanks for all the encouragement. A special thanks goes to Ann T and Annie for being so encouraging to us novices about bread baking. And Maureen thank you for the recipe. I think next time I will weigh the little balls to get them the same size. Does anyone know how much hamburger sized buns should weigh?

I scale the dough for burger/sandwich buns so I get equally sized rolls, which allows them to rise in about the same amount of time and bake evenly. For small ones I use 2 to 2.5 oz. and for large ones 3 to 3.5 oz. JUMBO as much as 4 oz. Just remember, 1-ounce of bread is equal to 1 serving of bread.... So one hamburger bun is always at least 2 servings, and possibly 3 or 4 servings the larger you make them.

You can also scale your dough to see what the total weight is and divide it by how many rolls you need, within that 2-4 oz. amount per roll.

If you happen to have muffin top pans (4-inch openings), they are perfect for making large buns in the shallow openings of the pans. Gives a nice form to the buns, similar to what expensive hamburger bun pans have. Muffin top pans come 6 holes to a pan. I have another pan similar to muffin top pans except the openings are only 2.5-inches across and the pan hold 12 rolls - perfect for small luncheon sandwiches.

-Grainlady

Thank you Grainlady. Wonderful advice, as always. I saved it with the recipe.

Weigh the dough and divide by 8. Duh! I guess I should have thought of that. LOL

OMG I just made these; they are delicious and super easy too! The only change I made is I substitued honey for the sugar. Thank you Maureen for the recipe and video. Great recipe and technique. And thank you GrainLady for the scale idea, I'll try that next time.

I made this recipe a couple weeks back for some pulled pork I did in the smoker. They were the best buns I have ever made. Rave reviews all around. I loved the texture and the taste.

Last week I made them again to be used for hamburgers. I made the dough, shaped the buns and set them to do their second rise. We went out for a boat ride and were gone 2 hours, maybe a bit more. I really didn't think that would be an issue but I came home to find totally deflated, goooopy dough.....uuugh! Lesson learned!

Excluding "operator error", these really are delicious buns!

Yay for you, Joan and Moose! I'm starting to feel a little weird telling people how beautiful their buns are, but what the heck. Those are some stunning buns!

I'm really glad I helped inspire someone to do something out of their comfort zone. Usually I'm the one who needs that kind of goosing. Not to belabor the buns thing.

I had to laugh at your story about your mom, Joan, because I had exactly the same reaction she did. I've been baking bread forever, but somehow it had never occurred to me that hamburger buns were made anywhere but in a factory. I was so ridiculously proud of mine the first time I made them. As we all should be.