HAHAHAHA

Now that I have your attention… I want to get you thinking about homemade BUNS…. yes, my friend Lynda always talks about getting her buns in the oven for the day and at first I thought, hmmm… is she speaking metaphorically about her two delightful sons? But then I began to realize, no, she’s talking about bread buns… like hot dog buns and burger buns and sandwich buns!

Ah!!!

And I’ve been noticing… we love our fresh bread and our breadmaker and all that, and nothing tastes better than fresh bread and our homemade butter… but twice now… a couple slices left in the box got old and… (gasp!) moldy!!!

We’re not big bread eaters, not all the time. Yet I was still buying hot dog buns and we were using up crescent rolls, and bisquick bisquits for breakfast, and dinner now and then…

Hmmm. So I did it… I made a batch of dough with the machine and let it rise good and then broke it up into smaller rolls and a couple longer sandwich length rolls…. HOW COOL!

The were perfect. Two batches in the little oven… all beautiful and golden brown… and perfect to use for all our applications… including popping into the freezer for the next day or two instead of letting them get old and stale!!!

My kids and I love Subway sandwiches, but they are terrible there… all they want is ham or turkey, a little mayo and some lettuce. That’s it. No other toppings. Me, I can do the whole bar and make it count, but they make the more boring sandwiches! Why pay $5 for that?

Well, now we can do the same at home.. way cheaper and fresher and all that. Sweeet! And it was EASY!

My longer buns were not quite as pretty as my little round top buns… hmmm…. maybe I need to get a longer tube shaped pan or something. I’ll bet there is something out there to make long loaves. Or maybe I just need to get a little better at it! (ha!)

Well… here is my best BUN recipe!!!

1 cup lukewarm buttermilk (or regular milk)
2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast
1/4 cup of honey (We don’t measure, we just pretty much do one good long squeeze from the bottle!)
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
4 cups of flour… (we like white for buns… or half and half with wheat flour, for more rolls….)
1/4 cup of oil (or butter)

Add all to your breadmaker… mix on dough setting. Sometimes you have to add a little bit more flour to make it knead and process better. Depends on the humidity and all.

Let rise and then pinch out little palm sized balls to roll and pop on a greased pan. Let rise 30 minutes and then pop in a 350 oven… you can brush the top with butter before or dust with a little bit of onion powder for a slightly oniony flavor. You can even chop very fine onion and then press the ball into the chopped onion before baking… or sesame seeds or any little topping you’d like! Cinnamon sugar is good tooo!

Cook until done… lightly brown and golden lovely on the top. Usually about 20-30 minutes it seems… just keep an eye on them, you’ll smell them when they are done! Yum!!!