I'd been making my Honey Wheat Sandwich Bread a lot when my husband asked if I could make some hamburger buns. I decided to use the dough from my sandwich bread, and just form it into buns (rather that loaves) at the last step. It worked great! I get to use my super-easy dough recipe, and we have delicious buns for burgers and our favorite pulled pork.
What you need: for 16 buns
1 Tbs yeast
3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees)
4 Tbs oil
1/2 cup honey
5 1/2 cups bread flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 tsp salt
Let's get cooking: 1.
Combine yeast and water. (You can sprinkle with 1/8 tsp sugar to help
activate the yeast). Let sit about 5 minutes, until foaming. Then add
oil and honey. 2.
Combine flours and salt in a stand mixer. Use the dough hook
attachment. With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in the yeast
mixture.
Note: if you don't have a stand mixer, you can still make this
simple dough. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture as in step
2. Mix slowly until well combined. Turn out onto a floured surface and
knead about 6 minutes by hand until dough is smooth and elastic. Then
continue with step 5. 3. Increase mixer speed to medium for 3 minutes. Then turn off mixer and let dough rest 5 minutes.
4. Turn out dough onto a floured surface. Knead about 50 times by hand, until the dough is smooth and elastic. 5.
Place dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover and let rise until double,
about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Punch dough down. 6. On a
lightly floured surface, divide dough into 16 equal parts and form into balls. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until double, about 30 minutes.
7.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for about 15 minutes, until just turning golden. I bake mine on a preheated stone, but you can also use a cookie sheet.
8.
Remove from pan and allow to completely cool on wire racks. Store on
the counter for up to 3 days in an airtight container.
I like to slice them and freeze in large Ziplocs for up to 1 month. (They probably freeze longer with no problems, but at our house homemade bread rarely hangs around that long).
A few months ago, I posted about my Great Grandma's quilt blocks that I wanted to assemble into quilts. Finally, I've made some progress on the first one. I have the bow-tie quilt top all finished, and it's ready for basting and quilting!
Usually,
sewing a few squares into rows would be easy-peasy. However, it turns
out that these blocks are not all the same size. I don't know
why--maybe the fabric has shrunk or distorted after years in a box? Or
maybe they were never exactly the same size? Maybe that's why Grandma
never used them ;) Whatever the reason, each block was slightly
different, enough that trying to assemble them into neat rows with
matching corners was soooo frustrating. I did a lot of seam-ripping (and a
moderate amount of venting to my patient hubby). What I finally had to do was insert a few small patches, as you can see in the pics, to make the blocks fit together. Then I had to give up trying to make the seams match perfectly and just go with it.
I think it's going to be an awesome baby quilt for our new baby. We didn't find out the gender, and I think that this quilt has enough pink, blue, and every other color that it will be perfect for a little boy or girl! -Lily
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