Bread Machine Buns

It’s the very last week of June and we haven’t bought any bread products so far this year! I take that back- I bought a loaf of bread so I could whip up a french toast casserole for some friends of our’s who are new parents. Outside of giving food to others, we have not bought any bread products. That even includes not buying tortillas even, just using our homemade tortilla recipe! My thrifted bread machine has been putting in the work, to say the least. With an infant in tow, I just don’t have the time or energy to be making our favorite homemade sandwich bread. So, not only are we making loaves upon loaves of bread machine bread but it’s now grilling season and we need buns. These bread machine buns have been life saving for my sanity and are way better for us than the store-bought versions.

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 3 cups flour
• 3 tsp quick rise yeast (instant or bread machine yeast)

OPTIONAL: 1/4 cup sugar and melted butter to brush the buns

Directions for Bread Machine Buns

Just in case you didn’t catch it from the title, you need a bread machine for this recipe. They don’t make my old girl anymore but this one is similar and will do a great job if you are looking for one.

Add all ingredients, except the optional melted butter, to your bread machine in the order listed above. If you are adding sugar put it in between the egg and the flour. Select the dough setting on the machine and let it do its thing. Once the cycle is complete, remove the dough from the machine and form it into buns. We can typically get 4 smaller hamburger buns and 4 hot dog or brat buns out of one batch. Obviously, you can do 8 hamburger buns or 8 hot dog buns too. Form them however it will work best for your family. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and set your buns on it. Let them rest and rise for about 15-20 minutes. About 5 minutes before they are done, preheat your oven to 350. If you are brushing with melted butter, do that now. Bake bread machine buns for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.

Freezing Buns

To be honest, I haven’t frozen any of the baked buns but I definitely want to! That would make this whole process so much easier because I could just grab them and thaw them throughout the day. I’d definitely recommend slicing them before freezing (just like I recommend the same thing if you are freezing a loaf of bread). This will also prevent you from having to turn on your oven constantly in the summer, which we are also trying to avoid! I’m positive that these would freeze well but when I give it a try I’ll make sure to confirm here.

In Summary: Bread Machine Buns

This is one where I ended up weighing the pros and cons. I don’t always feel like doing all of the above steps, especially when it feels like we are constantly grilling something and we constantly need these bread machine buns. However, I also don’t like running to the store constantly in the summer. I live in oversized cotton t-shirts or my swimsuit during the hot months and changing constantly is not my jam. At least with these buns I can throw them in to let the machine do the work and I can head right back out to the pool.