Bun recipe courtesy of Claire Saffitz
Time:
Feeds: 2-4 people
Ingredients:
For the buns:
Tangzhong:
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 50g bread flour
Dough:
- 490g bread flour
- 2 large eggs, chilled, plus 1 egg for brushing the dough
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp neutral oil
- 10g kosher salt, preferably Diamond Crystal
- 6g instant yeast
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, chilled
- Tangzhong
For assembly:
- Hot dog buns
- Hot dogs
- Condiments
- White onion, finely diced
Directions:
For the buns: Start with making the Tangzhong. Add milk, water, and bread flour to a small saucepan and whisk together until the flour is dissolved and incorporated. Cook on medium high heat and whisk constantly, cooking until it’s thickened almost like a roux. Remove from the saucepan and into a separate bowl so it can cool down before it gets added to the dough.
Combine dry ingredients in tot he bowl of the stand mixer including bread flour, salt, sugar, and instant yeast. Add the water, oil, and eggs to the Tangzhong, mixing to combine. Add the Tangzhong mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with the dough hook on the lowest speed for about 5 minutes.
Continue mixing on the lowest speed and add butter a piece at a time. The butter should slowly incorporate and the dough should get smoother as time goes on. You’ll know the dough is ready by conducting the window pane test. You can take a small piece of dough and gently stretch it. If it grows thinner and doesn’t break so you can start to see through it, that shows that the gluten has developed properly.
Stretch the dough into a ball and add to a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight.
The next day, remove from the bowl and flatten to degas the dough. Separate into 80g portions. Form into balls and let them rest, covered, for about 10 minutes. Form into torpedo shapes that are about 5 1/2” long, ensuring that you’re rolling in the middle as to not taper the ends. Flatten them slightly when you put them on the sheet tray and cover loosely, letting them rise so they’re doubled in size and touching. This should take about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and brush the buns with an egg wash. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until browned to your liking and remove from the oven to let cool.
For assembly: Grill or boil the hot dogs to your liking and prepare the buns. You can cut them along the side in a more traditional manner or you can cut them across the top instead like a lobster roll. Add the hot dogs to their buns and top with whatever condiments you’d like. We always like ketchup and mustard with raw white onions. I like to do kewpie mayo with Furikake and raw white onions as well. A Seattle dog would be great too with cream cheese and grilled onions.
Notes: This bun recipe could definitely be made into burger buns as well – just portioned and shaped differently. Although yeasted doughs can seem intimidating, this one is very straight forward and fairly easy to execute!