Rye Hot Dog Buns

Sometimes, I love a good hot dog, but the hot dog buns always leave much to be desired. I finally made my own hot dog buns and they weren't difficult at all. They were somewhat sweet with a not too strong rye and caraway flavor. They were soft and toasted perfectly. This is a hot dog that will go great with strong mustard and kraut. Do not sully this dog with ketchup.

The cool thing about hot dog buns is making them with the slit down the middle. How do you get them to stay attached? I didn't initially understand how to make these buns, but I've attached a diagram that should explain how to make these. Try them for your next BBQ. I guarantee you won't want to go back to regular hot dog buns.

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Rye Hot Dog Buns

Ingredients

• ¾ cup rye flour
• ¾ cup milk
• ½ cup onion, diced
• 3 tbsp honey
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp yeast
• 3 cups AP flour
• ¾ cup water
• 1 Tbsp caraway
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 egg white
• 2 Tbsp water

Directions

1. Puree onion in a blender to make an onion smoothie. If it won’t puree, add the honey to the blender as well.
2. Combine rye flour, milk, yeast, onion, honey and butter in mixing, bowl. Stir and let rest 10 minutes
3. Add water, salt, caraway and 2 ½ cup of flour. Mix and add more flour as necessary until dough pulls away from the bowl.
4. Knead until smooth. Place in greased bowl and let rest for 1 hour
5. After an hour, gently de-gas dough and divide dough into 13 pieces. Roll each piece into a 6 or 7 inch tube and line them up on a piece of parchment paper is ½ inch of space in between each.
6. Let dough rest until about 20 minutes until tubes have begun to grow together
7. Mix egg white and 2 Tbsp water together. Brush dough with egg white and let dough rest another 15 minutes
8. Bake buns at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let dough rest of pan another 5 minutes before transferring the parchment paper to a cooling rack. Let cool 30 minutes
9. Now here’s the cool part!
10. Slice completely down the center of each tube (lengthwise). Where you sliced will be the sides of the hot dog bun, and where the buns grew together is the split down the middle. You will end up with 12 hot dog buns and 2 slices of rye bread to eat immediately.
11. Serve with hot dogs, or anything else delicious.

in the diagram, the black rectangles are the tubes of dough. The red dotted lines are cut lines. Where I have marked is one hot dog bun. And the blue arrows are the awesome end pieces you get to eat right away when you slice the buns