Homemade hot dog rolls (buns)

Now that spring is finally on its way in the Northern hemisphere, thoughts are turning to outdoor eating and barbeques. This recipe for homemade hot dog rolls is the perfect way to showcase your baking talents and impress your guests with your own homemade rolls. This recipe is perfect for making hot dog rolls, and you can use it to make hamburger buns too!

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What makes the perfect hot dog roll?

A hot dog is everyone’s favourite snack. But if the roll is dry and tasteless then a hot dog can be quite bleh! I’ve done a bit of research into the perfect hot dog roll, and this is what I’ve found.

• A hot dog roll should be the same length as the sausage. There’s nothing worse than taking a bite out of a hot dog only to find that there’s no sausage in it.
• It should have a soft, chewy texture. Don’t get me wrong, I love a crusty bread roll (see my post on Portuguese rolls if you are looking for crusty rolls), but a hot dog roll shouldn’t leave crumbs all over the place.
• The rolls should freeze well. Nobody likes wasting food, so any leftover rolls should be able to be frozen for later use.
• They should stay fresh as long as possible. Stale bread is no fun to eat and you should be able to freshen the rolls up by steaming them in a damp paper towel in the microwave for a few seconds.

I think this recipe for hot dog buns ticks all these boxes and more.

For instance, you can simply change the shape of the dough and make hamburger buns, or even small soft dinner rolls. This is a very versatile recipe, and one that I think you will love.

What’s more, because you’ve made these rolls yourself, you know exactly what’s gone into them – so no preservatives etc. And of course, baking your own bread gives you such a sense of achievement!

So let’s get on with the recipe – it’s much easier than you would think.

Recipe information

• Prep time – 20 minutes
• Rising and proofing time – 4 hours (approximately)
• Cooking time – 20 minutes
• Yield – 8 long rolls (or 16 round or shorter rolls)
• Calories – 283 per roll
• Main equipment – Kenwood chef stand mixer. I love my Kenwood chef. It makes such short work of mixing dough. But don’t worry if you don’t have one – I’ve given instructions in the recipe for kneading the dough by hand.

Ingredients

With just a few simple ingredients you can be making your own hot dog rolls.

• Flour – for bread making you should always use strong bread flour. Bread flour contains more gluten than all purpose flour, which helps to create the chewy texture that we need.
• Eggs – this recipe is enriched with one whole egg, and one egg yolk. The white of the second egg is mixed with water and used to glaze the rolls before baking.
• Instant yeast – these are granules as opposed to fresh yeast and they have a much longer shelf-life than fresh. They are sold in the UK either in packets of 7g or in tubs that you can measure out yourself. One 7g packet is the equivalent of 2 teaspoons of instant yeast.
• Butter – the dough is enriched with melted butter which helps provide a softer texture, and also enhances the taste.
• Sugar – not much, just enough for a hint of sweetness. You can leave out the sugar if you prefer.
• Salt – optional, but I find that a single teaspoon of salt does enhance the flavour.
• Water – this provides the moisture content for the rolls and should be lukewarm, not cold.

Instructions

Mix the dough

• Measure the water, sugar and yeast into a mixing bowl, and stir until the sugar has dissolved (image 1 above).
• Break one egg into a bowl. Break the other egg and separate the yolk and the white. Add the yolk to the first egg and keep the white in a separate bowl. This will be used for brushing onto the rolls later. Beat the egg and egg yolk lightly with a fork.
• Place the flour into a mixing bowl and pour in the melted butter, the beaten eggs and the yeast mixture (image 2 above). Tip – melt the butter in the microwave – it only takes a few seconds.
• Mix with a wooden spoon until well incorporated (image 3 above).
• Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until you have a ball of soft non-sticky dough that springs back when you press it gently with your finger (image 4 above).

How to knead dough

Bread dough is kneaded to develop and stretch the gluten strands in the flour to give strength and texture to the rolls.

• Using the bottom half of your palm, press the dough firmly down and away from you.
• Pull the edge of the dough back up towards you and then press it firmly down and away from you again
• Repeat this movement, giving the dough a quarter turn after every three ‘pushes’.
• Keep this up for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic.

If you are using a stand mixer – attach the dough hook and tip all the ingredients into the bowl. Mix on low speed for 2 minutes to combine the ingredients, then increase the speed to medium and leave to mix for about 5 minutes.

Rest the dough

• Place the ball of dough into a mixing bowl, cover the bowl with a piece of plastic wrap (image 1 above) and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours. The dough will double in size (image 2 above). I also like to cover the bowl with a clean towel for extra warmth.
• Once the dough has risen, tip it out onto a floured surface and punch it down to remove the air bubbles (image 3 above).
• Now divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. I weighed my ball of dough and it weighed 740g which meant each ball was about 92g.
• If you don’t have a set of kitchen scales you could guess at the size, but I really do recommend having a set of scales in your kitchen. It makes measuring the ingredients for baking so much more accurate than using measuring cups. I use the one in the link, and it’s great because it gives you measurements in kg, lb, oz and grams (and it’s not expensive either 🙂 ).

Shape the rolls

• Take each ball of dough in turn and either roll it with a rolling pin or stretch and flatten it with your hand into an oblong shape approximately 6″ x 3″ in size (15cm x 8 cm) (image 1 above).
• Fold one side of the dough about one-third of the way over (image 2 above) and then fold the other side on top (image 3 above).
• Press the ends together to close (image 4 above).
• If you want to make hamburger buns, divide the dough into 10 or 12 pieces and just flatten each ball of dough to about half an inch in thickness before placing on the baking tray. I find that if I only make 8 round buns out of this dough, the buns are too large.

Proof and bake

• Place the rolls onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment (or a silicone baking mat). Leave about 1/2″ or 1cm between each roll to allow for expansion, cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise. This will take about 2 hours. I actually left mine overnight because I started making these rather late in the day.
• You can also make smaller rolls by cutting each of the larger rolls in half (image 1 above). This size is perfect for dinner rolls.
• Once the rolls have risen, mix the remaining egg white with 1 tablespoon of cold water and brush all over the top of the rolls (images 2 and 3 above).
• Bake in a preheated oven (190C / 395F) for 15 minutes until golden.
• Remove from the oven, cover the baking tray with a clean tea towel and allow to cool. Then break apart and serve.

Just look at how soft these rolls are –

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Questions

Additional resources

Don’t forget to check out my handy Cookery Conversion Calculator if you want to convert any of your recipe measurements from grams to cups, ounces, tablespoons or millilitres and vice versa. You can also use the calculator for converting oven temperatures between Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas marks.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read all about it in this post on baking at high altitudes.

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Related recipes

If you like the look of this recipe for hot dog rolls, you may like to try some of my other bread recipes too.

• No-knead soft dinner rolls
• Easy wholemeal soda bread
• No-knead seeded Irish soda bread
• Easy banana walnut bread

The recipe

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