Sourdough hamburger buns

I made the same Josey Baker sourdough recipe as I have the past couple of weeks, except I formed it into hamburger buns. It worked! These buns tasted good and stood up to some very big, juicy burgers.

The outside

I coated them with sesame seeds, but couldn't really taste the seeds. Next time I might try poppy seeds or onions. Or nothing.

The inside

I took some shortcuts with this recipe. The pre-ferment started the night before, as usual, and around 9 or 10 in the morning I mixed the dough and started the occasional gentle stretching and folding that the recipe calls for. Around 2 I formed the dough into balls. I wet the top of each ball and dunked it into a small saucepan containing fresh-toasted sesame seeds. Then I put the balls into the hamburger bun pan, squashed them, and let them sit for about an hour.

My friend Shams gave me this great hamburger pan

I tried slashing a couple of the larger buns, but they were rather wet and the shaping had been abbreviated, so slashing didn't do much. I baked the buns pretty much as normal (just 25 degrees cooler) but didn't let them get as dark as I'd let a big loaf get, since I was afraid they'd be too dry.

Despite the shortcuts, these were some darned good buns. They worked well with the delicious beef/lamb/onion burgers that our friend Johnny concocted.

PS: I also made some banana-bran nut muffins, from Bob's Red Mill Baking Book, but substituting pecans for walnuts. I used my usual sodium-free baking powder and soda. These aren't as muffiny as I expected—they're very very branny—but they grew on me. I might make them again.