While visiting my brother-in-law’s family in Dublin last weekend, I was looking for something which would be fun to bake, make and eat with the kids.
After a lovely cycle along the Dublin coastline, we went for a bit of grocery shopping in Sandymount Village and paid Michael Byrne & Son (Craft Butchers) a visit.
We couldn’t help but notice the great variety of (huge!) sausages on display and decided to buy a selection for a family hot dog feast on Sunday.
Here’s a recipe for delicious hot dog buns. They taste A LOT better than any supermarket buns and add hugely to the hot dog cooking experience.
What you’ll need to bake them (ingredients) – Bakes 8 Hot Dog buns
- 500g strong white flour
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of dried yeast
- 200ml milk, lukewarm
- 100ml water, lukewarm
- 25g melted butter
- 1 egg, beaten
How you’ll bake them –
- Add 100ml of the lukewarm milk, the sugar, yeast and 2 tablespoons of flour into a large bowl and mix together. Don’t add the salt or butter at this stage!
- Leave to rest in a warm place until the volume has doubled.
- Add the remaining ingredients to make the dough.
- Knead for 10 minutes and leave to rise for an hour in a lightly floured bowl. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and place in a draught-free place
- Preheat the oven to 230°C.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces.
- Now form the hot dogs –
- Use your palms to form a ball for each of the parts and then pat the pieces into oval shapes (about ⅔ of the length of your hot dog sausages). You won’t need a rolling pin for this.
- Use the edge of your hand to indent the dough down the length of the center.
- Gently fold the sides into the middle of the oval (length-wise i.e. only fold the two longer sides) towards the indentation you created and close by slightly pinching the edges to seal. Make sure the folded package is still going to be wide enough to fill with your hot dog sausages and tasty fillings later.
- Turn the dough pieces around so that the seams are at the bottom (seam-side down).
- Roll the dough buns carefully back and forth to gently seal the seams.
- Tuck any sharp ends in to flatten / round the ends. Each piece should now be of the same length as your hot dog sausages.
- Place all the pieces onto baking paper on a baking tray.
- Cover with a clean kitchen towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about 30 mins.
- Brush each bun with the beaten egg.
- Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approximately 20 mins or until golden brown. The buns should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
- Cool for about 10 mins on a wire rack before eating.
Gently open and fill – enjoy the deliciously rich flavour!
Apart from the very tasty sausages we added fried onions and wholegrain mustard, some Kilmeaden cheddar as well as chopped tomatoes (with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and a bit of olive oil).
Daragh and Aoibhinn preferred the simpler sausage and ketchup version 🙂