Homemade burger bun and meat patty
I have tried a few recipes for burger buns, moving into the direction of making whole wheat buns. The first batch I made was too dense and wasn't at all good. Then recently, I found a recipe that I thought was quite good.
Ingredients
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon dry yeast
3/4 cup warm whole milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup melted Crisco shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups flour or bread flour (I used 2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour)
1 egg white
1 teaspoon water
1 tablespoon sesame seed
Method
- Proof the yeast in 1 cup warm water with 1 teaspoon sugar. Leave it for about 10 mins.
- In a heavy duty stand mixer, fitted with a kneader hook, add in the flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, melted Crisco, warm milk and salt.
- Add in the proofed yeast. Mix to create a soft semi-sticky dough that holds around the blade, adding in more flour as needed (do not add in too much as it will create a heavy bun, dough should be semi-sticky).
- Knead dough for 7-8 minutes.
- Remove dough, and let rest on the counter, covered with a clean dish towel for 10 minutes (this is an important step!).
- Knead the dough gently for 30 seconds with hands.
- Place dough in a large well-greased/oiled bowl.
- Cover, let rise til double in size. (I followed the tip in the original recipe and used the oven instead. I set the oven to a little less than 200 degrees for about 2 or 3 mins then turned it off and put the dough, still in the mixer bowl covered with a kitchen towel)
- Punch down dough.
- Shape into large balls, and place on a tray lined with parchment paper or large greased cookie sheet (for a good sized bun, you can divide the dough into 12 pieces).
- Cover with a light clean tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for 30-40 minutes, or until almost doubled (warm oven rise should take 30 minutes).
- Set oven to 375 degrees.
- In a small bowl, mix together 1 egg white with 1 tsp water; whisk/mix well.
- Carefully brush the tops and sides of the buns with the egg/water mixture.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for approx.22 minutes, or until golden brown.
The original recipe can be found here: Kittencal's Hamburger/Burger Buns
For the meat patty, I used:
ground buffalo meat
medium onion, chopped
ketchup
worchestershire sauce
pepper
dried oregano
dried sage
hot pepper sauce (Death Sauce or whatever is your fancy)
salt
some garlic, minced
dry mustard
I can't really remember the measurements for the ingredients as it depends on your taste.
Tortillas made with love
Sometime ago, hubby had a craving for tortillas. He shopped for the tortillas, looked up the recipes for the filling and did them himself. We tried a few brands and types of tortillas. Somehow we weren't totally happy with the tortillas because some were too thick, some too dry and we felt we were sort of eating dry flour. I decided then to make my own tortillas. I googled and came up with a few recipes, opting of course for the simplest, easiest and especially if it had pictures but as usual, not many had pictures, just text. I can't remember where I got the recipe below but it works great!
FLOUR TORTILLAS
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour (I usually use 1 cup flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour, healthier, well, that is what I believe)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup lard or vegetable shortening (Crisco)
2/3 to 1 cup hot water
Method:
- In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients.
- Rub in the shortening until the mixture resembles very coarse meal. (Hubby does step 1 and 2. Rub in the shortening using your finger tips. DO NOT KNEAD IT IN!)
- Mix in the hot water until mixture is sticky but can be used to form a ball.
- Set the dough aside for at least 30 mins.
- Form dough balls the size of a small plum and roll in flour. (the size depends on how big you want your tortillas to be)
- Heat a flat pan over medium to medium high heat.
- Roll out the dough into very thin discs (well, I like them thin so it depends on your preference).
- Cook tortillas in pan, turning when it gets slightly brown and bubbles on the surface (it will puff up) - also done by Hubby.
- When both sides are done, place on a dish and cover with a slightly damp dish towel. Then cover with a dry towel. (I don't really do this part. I just allow them to cool down then stack them up.)
Usually, I can get about 12 tortillas so after they cool down, I will stack them up, put them in a ziploc bag and store in the fridge. Just reheat them in the pan when you want to eat them.)
I love doing the tortillas, mostly because it is done with Hubby. I don't like rubbing in the shortening, just feels too oily on my hands but he would do that for me and also the frying while I do the rolling out. We get it done in just a short period of time.
