The gluten-free hamburger buns on the market are pretty dry and stale and there is just not a lot you can do to buff them up (maybe lots of ketchup?) So although we still have hamburgers on occasion, they aren’t really good hamburgers — Until tonight! I went to Whole Foods, thinking I would get some of their GF buns but they were out. I had enough time, so I thought I’d use the bread machine to make a dough and then use that for hamburger buns. I didn’t know yet what I would use as a mold to shape the buns — I was, frankly, making it up as I went along.
By the way, gluten-free bread is a great bread for the bread machine. Since it is more of a batter than a true dough, the bread machine takes care of the process efficiently. There are lots of bread machine recipes out there and I see that Annalise G. Roberts has a complete book on gluten-free bread machine recipes . There are also lots of GF bread mixes that you can use. For hamburger buns, use your favorite sandwich recipe and then put the machine on the Dough setting.
So I had gotten this far — had some beautiful risen dough in the machine and now comes the time to figure out what to use for a mold. Muffin tins? Too small. Free form shapes on a baking sheet? I was afraid it would be too runny and flatten out too much. Looking through my cupboards, I spotted some medium-sized cereal bowls. Hmmm… I greased the bowls, divided the dough into four of the bowls, put them on a baking sheet and baked for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While they were baking, I cooked up the hamburgers. The “bowl buns” turned out beautifully — just the perfect size for the hamburgers. Even my gluten-eating husband gave them a big thumbs up.
