I’ve been wanting to share my homemade, whole wheat hamburger bun recipe with you for some time.
After trying several recipes and tweaking to my liking this is the one I landed on for my family.
It’s really easy to make and comes out soft with a chewy texture. The way bread should taste.
I’m not a fan of bread that in your first bite you wonder, “did I just chew into something?” You know, the kind of bread that seems like it’s just filled with air.
This bread definitely has texture and honestly makes a great toast in the morning as well.
Smothered in butter and dipped in coffee… hey, why not?
Homemade, Whole Wheat Hamburger and Hot Dog Buns
Makes 16 hamburger buns or 8 hamburger buns and 8 hot dog buns
Recipe adapted from The Kitchen
For all of my baked goods I grind my own grains. Besides it’s nutritional value, the reason I absolutely love milling my own wheat berries is that you can adapt any recipe using 100% whole wheat flour.
The end result is always soft and light just as if you’re using unbleached white flour. Most people will not even know that it’s whole wheat.
If you’re using store bought whole wheat flour, the end result will most likely be more dense and well… not so good. My recommendation is if you do not mill your own grains, use unbleached white flour as instructed on The Kitchen website.
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon active-dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 cup milk
- 2 large eggs
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- 4 tablespoons honey
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups ground, hard red winter wheat berries (whole wheat flour)
- 2 1/2 cups ground, soft white wheat berries (whole wheat pastry flour)
Method:
1. In a small bowl, add the yeast to warm water and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
2. In the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together the milk, eggs, melted butter, honey, and salt.
3. Add the warm water with yeast and stir until combined.
4. Add the ground flour and with your paddle attachment mix on low until the flour just incorporates with the wet ingredients. Once incorporated, switch to your dough hook and knead until your dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl for about 10 minutes. If your dough is sticking add a tablespoon at a time more flour while it’s mixing. Your finished dough should be slightly sticky and spring back when poked.
Once kneaded, shape your dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl.
5. Brush your dough with some oil, cover, and allow to rise until doubled in bulk for about one hour.
6. Once risen, divide the dough in half.
7. Divide each half into 8 equal pieces. (Each half should make 8 buns.)
8. Shape each piece into a tight ball. (This will allow the dough to rise up)
To shape hot dog buns, roll into a tight cylinder. (The kids love this part.)
9. Transfer the balls to a baking sheet or pizza stone and gently pat them down (not too much). Brush each with a bit of oil, cover, and allow to rise for 30 minutes.
10. Once risen, bake at 375F for 15-18 minutes or until the tops are nice and golden.
11. Once baked, brush the tops with a bit of butter and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
They taste best fresh but will keep up to a week.
Do you make your own buns? What’s your favorite sandwich or hamburger recipe? Feel free to share any links in the comments below.
Yum!! Do you make these with sprouted flour? I just started sprouting & grinding my own flour & find sometimes it doesn’t work quite as well as when I was using unsprouted flour. They look delish, thanks for this recipe!!
Steph, these are not made with sprouted flour, however, I’ve never had a problem with rising when I do sprout. I’ve heard others have had problems though I’m not sure why? Is your process similar to mine? I wonder what type of wheat berries you’re using?
http://www.spain-in-iowa.com/2010/02/sprouting-whole-grains/
I actually learned the process from your blog! 🙂 Except I have been sprouting in larger batches with mesh collanders vs. jars with lids. I get my wheat berries from Azure Standard. I just started making things with sprouted flour, so I don’t have much experience with many recipes. I have tried your sprouted whole wheat bread recipe with success-yum! The other recipes usually turn out ok, just not how they did prior to using sprouted wheat-like blueberry muffins, German pancakes etc.-they seemed to be more mushy. Probably something I need to keep experimenting with! 🙂 Thanks!!
I use challah recipe as my daily bread and the base of everything. It makes amazing sticky buns. I do all my mixing in a bread maker. I have never liked making homemade bread by hand, but I love the taste. A fairly decent compromise in my book.
Text to click on
This recipe makes a one pound loaf which is perfect for two people.
Yum!! Looks delicious! Have you tried using sourdough for yeast? Just curious.
Hey Mare! No, I haven’t tried this recipe with a sourdough culture. One day I’ll start up my sourdough again, lol!
These look amazing!!!
Thanks Katie!
They look delicious!
Diana,
I am new at this and am confused when they say 4 cups of ground berries is that 4 cups of berries and then grind or is it 4 cups of flour from grinding berries?
Thanks for the clarification.
So sorry Cassandra, I should have been more specific. 4 cups of ground flour. So after grinding, it needs to equal 4 cups. I’ll clarify that in the post!
Diana, I just had a question, my husband and I are talking about gettting a grinder to grind our own wheat, but where do you get your wheat berries, we were looking at a health food store and they seemed very expensive.
Thanks
Angi, I get my wheatberries from a local seed company in town. Check out your area. Mine is called Des Moines Seed. You can also purchase them at a good price from Azure Standard. Also, Walmart carries a 25lb bag of chemical free Montana Wheat Berries. I think it’s about $13. They have hard red and hard white. Hope that helps!
I just made these and they were perfect! I do not grind my own wheat berries yet so I used regular whole wheat pastry flour and whole wheat flour and I soaked it overnight with one cup of whey (instead of the cup of milk). This morning I proceeded with the rest of the recipe as written. Thanks for posting!
Thanks for the feedback, Annie!
what did you mean by you soaked it overnight…. i dont make my whole wheat from berries so i was going to try it like you did… thanks
Laurie, Annie soaks her flour overnight to reduce phytates in the whole wheat flour. The phytates are in the bran of the grain. This is a difficult subject to touch upon but basically some believe that there are anti nutrients in the bran that act as chelators… (they suck valuable vitamins and other nutrients within our digestive system). However, unfortunately, it’s know known that soaking your flour overnight doesn’t really do much effect. The phytates remain. The best thing to do which will inactivate phytates is sourdough. Natural fermentation will do the job. Since many people do not have the time to make sourdough consistently, many are now using Einkorn grain which is double sifted so much of the bran is removed or as I’m doing more these days, using unbleached, unenriched white flour. Yeah… it’s a CRAZY subject, lol!!
thanks diana for getting back with me… one more question, if you dont mind…… does that mean, you dont use your mill anymore because the wheat berries have all the stuff in it that you cant take out by soaking??? I’m trying to decide to get one or not..
Laurie, it’s such a difficult subject, huh?! I do have a grain mill but as of this past month it’s been sitting un-used. After reading and researching many different books, it’s been shown that traditionally people would sift their freshly ground flour to remove as much of the bran as possible. They did this for lighter loaves, not for any health reasons. But it did get me thinking, I’ve always had great teeth. Growing up, I didn’t frequent the dentist regularly and still managed to be cavity free… until I started college. It was in college that my friends told me I needed to be eating whole wheat bread. I had always grown up eating white bread. As has my mothers family in Spain for generations. But, it was at that time that whole grains started taking off and so I went with it. Since then I’ve had problems with cavities. My diet is filled with nourishing foods, low on sugar, so I was getting REALLY frustrated. After reading through so much research about the sifting, I became very interested in Ramiel Nagel’s book, Cure Tooth Decay. In it he explains how whole grains are detrimental to our health and cause cavities.
http://www.curetoothdecay.com/Tooth_Decay/whole_grains_cause_tooth_decay.htm
So as of last month, I decided to put away my wheat berries for awhile and am going to be making all of our baked goods using unbleached, unenriched and see what happens at our next dentist appointment. I also want to start doing some of the other things called for in the book to see if it can heal some of my cavities. We’ll see.
Really it’s up to the individual. I do think though that sifting to remove part of the bran and then making sure your fermenting the wheat is the best route to go. Unfortunately, I just don’t have that kind of time right now.
I hope I didn’t make your head start to swirl, lol!! If you have any other questions, let me know 😀
Wow so does that mean that the bran is unhealthy for pepole to eat? If it sucks away nutrients in our body it sounds terrible. Also I live in Ontario, Canada and so far I can only find organic unbleached all purpose flour BUT I noticed that it is enriched! I cant seem to find any organic unenriched so like you I do grind my own wheat berries. So do you sift out all the bran after grinding?
Tara, I don’t. Honestly, I’ve been using einkorn flour for my baking needs. You can read all about it here –> http://www.myhumblekitchen.com/2014/01/tangled-web-bread/
Saw your buns on Eat Make Grow and I’m going to pass the recipe on to my husband. He’s the bread-baker of our family, and while he makes some dang good dinner rolls and hamburger buns, the hot dog buns have so far come out… misshapen. Yours look great!
I made these buns today to go with my homemade burger patties and WOW, so tasty. Will not be buying store bought buns again after this. Thanks so much for sharing!
My wife just used this recipe for our fully homemade meal and they were awesome. Thanks for sharing.
I made these buns, and I loved the dough so much that I decided to use it as a sandwich bread, and it turned out great! I soaked the flour overnight in the water and milk (using some whey/kefir for some of the milk). I also used one cup of white flour in place of some of the hard red, but I think it would be great even all whole wheat. Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks for sharing, Joanna!
How do these turn out if you freeze them and then thaw before serving?
Yana, they’re great! They freeze really well.
Can you recommend a grinder that is not super expensive? My mother in law uses a k tech so that is the only one I really know anything about. Also, I’d rather not use all purpose flour but since I don’t have a grinder yet I still feel it is better than store bought. So for now I would like to use the all purpose flour as you recommended. You used 2 different kind of berries…do I need to use 2 different kinds of white flour (all purpose, bread flour?) or can I just use 1? Thanks!
Elizabeth, you’ll only need one type of flour if you’ll be using all purpose. I would recommend buying an organic, unbleached, unenriched. It’s difficult to find at the stores, but if you visit a local bakery, there’s a good chance they’ll sell you some. I’ve also had good luck buying it at health food stores in their bulk bin area or through Azure Standard. As far as a grinder that is not super expensive, well…they’re all pretty expensive. Before I got my grain mill, I actually purchased a good coffee grinder and used it to grind my grains. It did take awhile as I could only grind so much at a time without burning it up. But, it did show me how much I enjoyed the flavor of freshly ground grains. Working with it is a dream! I hope that helped ;D
It did!!! Thanks so much!
I love your recipe. I cook it when I can and my hamburguers looks and taste really good. I put always some jamón ibérico de cebo de campo loncheado to bring a really different taste to my hamburguers and hot dogs.
Thanks
Easy recipe and they were delicious. They freeze well. So much better than store bought buns and your directions were great. Thank you
I’ve wanted to make my own hot dog buns for a while now and these are perfect. Thanks Diana!
Perfect! Since I started grinding my own wheat I’ve had a hard time making buns that would work for a hamburger. These were as light and fluffy as can be! I’ll be making these as a part of our bread rotation!!
That’s great to hear, Julia!
As I was searching for a good whole white wheat hamburger/hot dog recipe, I found your sight. I also am a daughter of the King, a mother of two, and am married to a wonderful man of God. I started milling and making my own bread a few years ago, but now I am wanting to make buns. I was wondering if you could just use all of whole white wheat flour instead of the two different kinds of flour. I look forward to hearing from you. THANKS!
Oh, for sure! Using just whole white wheat flour will turn out just fine! I’m glad you found me 😀 Thanks for stopping by!
Hi,Diana I made these hamburger buns and they came out really soft ,my family just loved it.Thanks for sharing the recipe…..god bless.
I’m glad to hear that, Kezia!
Have you made this recipe with Einkron all purpose flour yet? IF SO, are their any adjustments to this recipe? I was thinking of using Einkron All purpose for the total amount of both red and white berries. Thanks. And I must say how incredible it is that you still comment after years and years. Very commendable.
Hey, Lisa. No, not yet! One resource I can direct you to is the Einkorn cookbook written by Carla from Jovial Foods. Check it out! It has so many einkorn recipes including hamburger buns. Best wishes 😀