Hamburger

There is nothing quite like a good hamburger, on a quality bun. I woke up this morning and almost immediately had a craving since we had not had burgers in a number of months. So down into the basement I went and hauled a couple of packages of ground beef out of the deep freeze, and came up and set it out to thaw. I then got out the bread machine and started on a batch of dough to make buns. Whole wheat, of course.

For buns I use my basic dough recipe, that I use for bread, buns, pizza dough, cinnamon buns and more. It is extremely versatile, as you can see. When the machine is done with the dough, I take my little kitchen scale and weight out 83g balls. The recipe makes a kg (2.2lbs) of dough, and 83g per makes an even dozen. When you are weighing out exact amounts of dough like this, you sometimes end up with one big piece, and then 2 or 3 little pieces added to it in order to make up the full amount. In a case like this you really have to give the new ball a quick 5 or 10 second knead to make sure all of the pieces that make it up are fully integrated. If you just try to squeeze it together in your palms like making a snowball, it will at first look like it worked, but as the buns rise the pieces will separate again. Arrange them on a well greased sheet or pan, cover, and allow to rise in a warm place for one hour. Then preheat the oven to 350F and bake 20 minutes. I turn off the convection for my buns so it does not dry them out.