I originally posted this recipe on my now-defunct baking blog (it was too much work to maintain a separate baking blog, which is why we now do Wednesday Baking here!), and I’ve been meaning to move it over here, but just haven’t gotten around to it. I brought these to a church function on Saturday, though, and got a few recipe requests, which reminded me that I needed to get this posted. I’ve linked to this recipe before in my menu plans, but now it has a Frugal Girl post of its own. 
By the way, a printable version(i.e. with fewer pictures) is available here.
We use these for BBQ beef sandwiches, hamburgers, ham sandwiches, and pulled chicken sandwiches. Leftover buns make delicious garlic toast…just split, spread with garlic butter, and broil until browned.
Homemade Hamburger Buns
1/2 cup warm water(105 F)
2 packages(4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2-5 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
Combine yeast and water in large mixer bowl. Let stand.
While the yeast and water are standing, combine milk, butter, sugar, and salt, and heat in the microwave until lukewarm(105 degrees F). By the time that’s done, the yeast should look like this:
Add the lukewarm milk mixture to the yeast. Add 2 cups of flour and mix well. Add 2 eggs, and mix until combined.
The dough will be sort of like a batter at this point.
Add enough flour to make a relatively stiff dough.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. I use a bench knife to make this process easier when the dough is first being kneaded and is still rather soft.
After kneading, it should look like this.
Put it into a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise for 1 hour…
at which point it should look like this:
Punch the dough down and turn out onto a floured surface. Divide into 16 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball, and then flatten each into a disk. Below, from left to right are a divided 16th of the dough, a dough ball, and a flattened disk. Place each disk onto a greased baking sheet, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.
This is before rising(as you can see, mine are far from perfect circles!)…
…and this is after. At this point, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Once the oven is heated, bake the buns for 12-14 minutes, or until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. They should look something like this:
Cool on a wire rack.
The buns can be brushed with a mixture of egg and water before baking, but all I had when I was making these was organic eggs, and I hate to use those to make shiny buns!
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This is the recipe I used with that BBQ beef – DH loved them!
You say to divide the dough into 16 pieces, but you only show 12 on the cookie sheet. Do you normally make them in bigger batches, or do you bake the other 4 on another sheet?
Also, when I made them, they came out a little on the small side. I made 15 and fit them all on one cookie sheet, then proceeded to almost kill the yeast by forgetting to turn off the oven while letting them rise in a “warm” oven. Thankfully they tasted just fine, just were a little small.
Oh, 12 is just all that will fit on the cookie sheet. I bake the rest on another sheet. lol
Mine are definitely not on the small end of things…they’re a fairly large bun. That’s a pretty big cookie sheet they’re on, just to give you an idea of their size. I’d say they’re 3.5-4 inches in diameter.
I still need to try these. My family is big into hamburgers so there’s really no excuse not to try this.
I know this is better than homemade, but I do wonder what the cost of making these are. Hamburger buns (at least from the discount rack) are relatively cheap ($1 for
so I’m interested to see what the savings (if any) are. I know the gain is better tasting, HFCS free buns. 
Battra-to make cheaper buns at home, you’d have to use water instead of milk, oil instead of butter, and water instead of eggs. The salt, sugar, yeast, and water are all really cheap…the milk, butter, and eggs are the pricer ingredients.
Now, if you were comparing these buns to nice buns at the store which were made with butter, milk, and eggs, they’d probably be cheaper, but you’re right, they’re not going to be cheaper than the $1/8 type of buns you can buy.
Do you ever make pretzels and bagels? Homemade pretzels and bagels are cheap and so very tasty. My kids will eat like 4 at once if I let them. Do you ever use spelt flour in your baking? I recently started using it and I find it works really well in pita bread, naan, pretzels and bagels. It gives them a crisper texture and more interesting flavor. My results weren’t as good in sandwich bread, for some reason.
Your hamburger buns look really good! I’ll have to try those next time we grill.
I need to find your baking blog. these look wonderful and I’ll be making some this weekend. Thanks.
I just came across your blog. It is so refreshing to know that there are other people out there that are living within their means. With the economy the way it is a lot of people are realizing that there is a better way to live. Fortunately my family and I have been living this way so long we are not even noticing a difference. We too are debt free with the exception of my mortgage. Way to go and keep it up!
PS – The little dress is so sweet. Your little girl looks like a wee doll!
PS – I love the post about the scotch tape. My daughter (now 11) used to hoard tape so I bought some for her birthday once. She also still loves envelopes. I finally bought her a case of 100 at the dollar store. I have to “borrow” envelopes from her sometimes which she hands over reluctantly. hee hee
I gotta try these. My husband loves hamburgers in the summer. He really likes potato rolls. Any idea how to convert these? I’m not sure if it would be as easy as just adding potato flakes instead of some of the flour.
Kristin – I have a bunch of leftover mashed potatoes, so I was looking around for recipes using them in bread. From what I found, you can replace up to 50% of the flour with potato-ness. I think if you were using instant potatoes, you might try mixing them up as if you were going to eat them (just with water, no butter or salt!), then add half again as much milk and some eggs, yeast, sugar, salt, and flour. For example, if you mix up 1 c. of mashed potatoes, add ~2 tsp yeast dissolved in 1/2 c. warm milk, 1 egg, 1/2-1 tsp salt, 1-2 T sugar, and enough flour to make a smooth dough (probably 1-2 c.)
Good luck!
EngineerMom, thanks for the tip. I’ll try that.
I love to bake bread and I’ve been meaning to add hamburger buns to my baking activities. Thanks for the recipe. I bet the 2 eggs make a really rich soft bun.
These look wonderful. My question is – can I use the bread machine for the mixing and kneading? If so, would I still have to do the water & yeast step? Thanks much. I really appreciate the great recipes, ideas and planning I get from your site.
Kristen,
Is there anyway you could post an easy to print version of this recipe? That would be super helpful. Thanks!
Kristin-yes, I’ll try to do that today. Stay tuned!
Calimama-yep, you could use your bread machine. And I think you can skip the yeast-dissolving step…you would know better than me though! I’m not very up on bread machines.
Looks so yummy! Thanks for sharing.
How fun! I will have to try this.
Oh my these look absolutely delicious!
I made these lovelies about 2 months ago using the Fleishmann’s yeast book (free) that i sent away for. My family absolutely mooned over them and surprisingly, they were super easy. My mom thought we had actually bought the bread…a very high compliment (to me at least). keep up the great baking posts. i LOVE them
This one is a keeper! I halved the recipe yesterday and made eight buns. Five went for our cheeseburgers, (homemade venison ones), and the remaining three were used for luncheon sandwiches today. Thinking of sprinking sesame seeds on top the next time that I bake them.
Also have made the French bread several times which my whole family loves.
Thanks Kristen for sharing both recipes!
Did you use commercial flour or grind your own? Do you know if these would turn out well using hard white wheat? I would love to start making our own buns, thanks so much for sharing this recipe.
If I wanted to add egg and onion to imitate the Country Heath Onion Buns. The C H buns are very yellow, super-soft with great onion taste, they are my favorite commercial bun, how much would you suggest I use in this recipe?