Hot dog buns: still soft on day three, thanks to a flour paste
Shop-bought hot dog buns owe their softness partly to emulsifiers. At home a similar result comes from a flour paste — 30 g of flour cooked with milk into a thick gel and stirred into the dough. The gelatinised starch binds water and holds on to it during baking, so the buns are moist and airy even on the third day. The method grew out of Japanese baking (yudane) and is best known by its Chinese name, tangzhong; it works in any enriched yeast dough.
Your own work in that: 1 h 15 min.
- Flour paste and kneading 35 min
- Rising 105 min
- Shaping and baking 40 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCook the flour paste
Whisk the flour into the milk cold, until there are no lumps, then heat gently, stirring constantly, for 3–5 minutes, until it thickens into a gel that holds the mark of the whisk. Take it off and cool to room temperature.
Ingredients: 30 g plain flour · 150 ml milk
TipA hot paste can kill the yeast. To cool it fast, spread it thinly on a plate and press cling film onto the surface.
A thick gel that holds the whisk markKnead the dough
Into the mixer bowl put the flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Add the cooled paste, the lukewarm milk and the egg. Knead with a hook 8 minutes, then add the soft butter a piece at a time and knead another 7 minutes, until the dough is smooth, glossy and clears the sides of the bowl.
Ingredients: 450 g strong bread flour · 130 ml milk · 1 pcs egg · 60 g butter · 50 g sugar · 7 g dried yeast · 1½ tsp salt
TipButter always goes in last. Added at the start it coats the flour and the gluten develops much more slowly — it is harder to get a stretchy, elastic dough.
Butter piece by piece, after eight minutesFirst rise
Move to an oiled bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for 60 minutes, until doubled. The test: press a finger in 1 cm — the dent should fill back in slowly. If it springs straight back, give it another quarter hour.
Shape the logs
Divide the dough into 10 pieces of about 90 g. Flatten each into a 12 × 8 cm rectangle, roll it up tightly along the long side like a Swiss roll and pinch the seam shut. Rolling drives out large air pockets; without it the bun splits somewhere random in the oven.
Rectangle, tight roll, sealed seamSecond rise
Set the logs on a tray seam down, 2 cm apart. Cover and leave 45 minutes. They should rise until they touch at the sides — that forces them upwards and leaves the sides pale and soft, exactly like the bought ones. Towards the end, heat the oven to 180 °C (conventional).
TipSpaced more than 2 cm apart, the buns brown on every side and get a firmer crust. For a hot dog, soft pale sides are better.
Two centimetres apart, so they grow togetherBake 18 minutes
Brush the tops with beaten egg and add sesame if you like. Bake 18 minutes at 180 °C, until golden. The moment they come out, brush with melted butter — the crust softens and takes on a sheen. Cool on a rack.
Ingredients: 1 pcs egg for glazing · 20 g butter · 2 tbsp sesame seeds
Butter straight out of the oven, for a soft crust
Before you start
Burger buns
The same dough, shaped into 90 g balls and flattened by hand to 10 cm across. Same baking time. More sesame on top and that is the classic burger bun.
How to cut them
It is easiest to split the bun from the top, not the side, and not all the way through. That way the bun holds the sauce instead of releasing it onto your trousers.
Freezing
Cooled buns freeze beautifully for a month. Reheat from frozen: 8 minutes at 170 °C wrapped in foil, then a minute unwrapped.
Without a mixer
Knead 15 minutes by hand and work the butter in by folding: flatten the dough, spread butter over it, fold in three and repeat four times.
