As you may know, I make all our bread with my Zojirushi Bread Machine. OK, there is the occasional trip to Cobs bread but aside from that I make all of our bread. I even make our hamburger buns. But there’s been one gaping hole in my bread production. I haven’t been able to make hot dog buns. It’s troubled me for a long time.

Then I noticed that King Arthur Flour sells a hot dog bun pan. It seemed like a lot of money to spend, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I finally gave in and bought it for myself last Christmas.

Here’s how it looks. See all the ridges?

The first step was to make the dough for the buns.

Bread Machine Hot Dog Buns

1 – 1/4 Cups water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Egg
3 Cups bread flour
1/4 Cup instant mashed potato flakes
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 – 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons active bread yeast

Add the ingredients to your bread machine as per the machine’s instructions. Use the dough setting. When it’s done you should have something that looks like this:

Turn the dough out on a floured surface and make it into a rectangle shape that will fit into the bun pan. Grease the pan and then add the dough.

Here’s the part that threw me off. It sounds a little strange but what you do next is grease the bottom of clean cookie sheet and put this on top of the pan. The idea is that the cookie sheet will help shape the buns.

Let the dough rise until it’s almost filled the pan. I let it rise for an hour and I think that was a little too much. Next time I’ll check it after forty five minutes.

Then put the pan with the cookie sheet still on top into a 375 degree oven. Cook the rolls for 18 minutes. If they’re not brown enough for you then take the cookie sheet off the top and cook for a few more minutes. I didn’t have to do this though. Mine turned out wonderfully without the extra minutes.

Cool them on a rack in the pan for five minutes. Then take the buns out of the pan. Flip them over and let them finish cooling.

The pan makes ten buns. To prepare them you cut each bun down the middle without cutting through to the bottom. Then cut down the indented lines to separate the ten buns.

And here’s one of the buns in action:

We used them for hot dogs and ham sandwiches. I did have a problem with the bun being a little too big when I ate my hot dog. This wasn’t a problem for The Man of the House and it wasn’t a problem for either of us with the ham sandwiches. I think that keeping an eye on the rising dough next time will help keep the buns a more manageable size.

I loved the taste! I also enjoyed the fact that I knew everything that went into them.