For the Fourth of July The Man of the House is going to fire up the grill and we’re going to have hamburgers. My part of the proceedings will be to make the buns.
I’ve been making our hamburger buns for years now. They always taste great. I also appreciate the fact that they’re not mushy or squishy. These buns will not fall apart as you eat them.
The only problem I’ve had is with the sizing. I recently figured out the trick. Divide the dough into nine pieces and make nine hamburger buns. I’d always made eight buns in the past. But once I started using this recipe to make nine buns, all my sizing troubles disappeared.
Use the dough setting of your Zojirushi Bread Machine. When the dough is done put it on a lightly floured board and divide in half. The goal is to get 9 hamburger buns of appropriate size and shape. When you’ve got the buns the right size and shape put them on a greased cookie sheet. Remember not to put them too close together as they’ll get larger as they cook.
Cover the buns with a clean, light-weight kitchen towel and let the buns rise for half an hour. Then remove the towel and put the buns in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.
A few months ago I found a great recipe for sour milk bread. We like it so much that it’s become the recipe that I use most often. I love its simple ingredients list and the texture of the bread.
I’ve even developed a version for a two pound bread loaf.
Sour Milk Bread – Two Pound Loaf
1 ½ cups sour milk (regular milk works fine too)
4 cups flour
1 ¼ teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons sugar
1 ½ Tablespoons oil (optional)
1 ¾ teaspoons yeast
Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first. Make sure you check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. Just pop the top of the bread machine and see how the dough is doing. It should be a smooth, round ball. If it’s too dry add liquid a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK.
You’ll notice that I’ve added oil as an optional ingredient. The bread tastes fine without it. However we freeze our bread. We noticed that after freezing the toasted crust is a little tough without the oil.
When people get a bread machine they’re generally faced with two conflicting fears.
The first fear people have is that when presented with wonderful, homemade bread that they’ll go wild. They’ll become bread-eating machines. Who could have restraint when faced with the aroma of baking bread?
The second fear, oddly enough, is that they won’t eat the bread fast enough. They’re afraid that the bread will go bad before it’s eaten. Nobody wants to waste time or ingredients.
Let’s deal with these one at a time.
Fear One – I’ll go wild and eat way too much bread.
The fact is that you will go wild. It will last for two or three loaves of bread. Then you’ll get used to having homemade bread around the house. In other words, the effect will wear off.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still love the aroma of baking bread. You’ll enjoy the taste. You’ll scoff at store bought bread. You’ll start looking at sandwiches in a whole new way. You’ll branch out into making hamburger burns and rolls. But you won’t feel the need to eat bread all day every day.
Fear Two – The bread will go bad before I can eat it all.
Not to worry. Here’s what you do. Once the bread is cooled slice the entire loaf at once. Then put the sliced bread into a Ziplock bag and put the bag into your freezer.
Take the bread out as needed and put into the toaster. Our toaster can thaw the bread and toast it with one round of toasting. My parents need to run the bread through the toaster twice. Either way, it works fine the the bread tastes great.
These bread sticks are soft and buttery. I like to serve them along side a hearty soup.
Bread Sticks
1 Cup water
1 Egg, lightly beaten
3 ¼ Cups bread flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons dry milk
¼ Cup butter
1 ½ teaspoons yeast
Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first. Set the machine on the dough setting. Make sure you check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. It should be a smooth, round ball. If it’s too dry add liquid a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks right.
Here’s how the dough looks when it’s done.
When the dough is done put it on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 18 equal pieces. Then roll each piece until it’s a rope that will fit in your greased cookie sheet like so.
Note that you’ll need two pans for this.
Cover the rolls with a clean, light-weight kitchen towel and let the rolls rise for half an hour. Then remove the towel and put the bread sticks in a 400 degree oven for 10 to 13 minutes or until done. (It took only 11 minutes in my oven.)
Move the cooked bread sticks to a rack to cool.
The bread sticks tasted great, but seemed a little large. The next time I make them I’m going to try to make 20 bread sticks instead of 18. That should make them the right size.
How can a recipe with such an unappetizing title turn out a bread that’s so good? I recently tried sour milk bread for the first time and was amazed at its taste and texture. It’s so good that it might replace sandwich bread as the bread that we have on hand for making toast and sandwiches.
Note that this bread doesn’t have any oil. That’s not a typo. There’s no oil in this recipe. I think the fat may come from the milk fat instead of oil or butter. If anyone tries this recipe using fat free milk please leave a comment and let me know how it turns out. I used 2% milk and the bread was great.
I’m going to experiment with this bread. The below makes about a 1.5 pound loaf. I’d like a recipe for 2 pounds. What happens when regular (non sour) milk is used? What happens if you use buttermilk? I see variations aplenty with this one!
Sour Milk Bread
1 ⅛ cups sour milk
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons yeast
Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first. Make sure you check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. Just pop the top of the bread machine and see how the dough is doing. It should be a smooth, round ball. If it’s too dry add liquid a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK.
A few weeks ago I ordered some new bakeware from King Arthur Flour. I’d always wanted to try some of their bread mixes so I gave into temptation and ordered a few. I’d never made sourdough bread so I was excited about their Alaskan Sourdough Yeast Bread mix.
In addition to the contents of the box I needed water and oil. I followed the instructions and put all the ingredients in the pan of my Zojirushi bread machine.
The bread looked great when it came out and it tasted pretty great too. It had a lovely sourdough flavor and was pleasantly chewy.
This was a real winner and it made me think about making sourdough bread on a regular basis. That would mean buying sourdough starter or making starter from scratch. The Zojirushi actually has a setting to make sourdough starter so that would be fine. However starter has to be fed and maintained. I wonder how much time and effort that takes? Hmmm . . . I’ll have to do some more investigation.
My recent experiment with chocolate coconut bread went well. However I felt that there were still unexplored areas in terms of combining chocolate with bread making. So I tried yet another chocolate bread recipe.
Chocolate Bread
1 3/8 Cup milk
1 Egg, lightly beaten
4 ¼ Cups bread flour
2 Tablespoon butter
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast
2/3 Cup chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa
This makes a two pound loaf. Follow the instructions that came with your bread machine in terms of which ingredients to put in the bread machine first. Make sure you check on the dough after five or ten minutes of kneading. Just pop the top of the bread machine and see how the dough is doing. It should be a smooth, round ball. If it’s too dry add liquid a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK. If it looks too wet, add flour a tablespoon at a time until it looks OK. Most of the time though, the above amounts should be just right.
If I had to pick between the two varieties of chocolate bread, I’d pick this one. The chocolate flavor was more pronounced and there was no pesky coconut to toast.
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