Gluten Free Friday: Hamburger Buns

I cannot possibly express the depth of my love for Jeanne of the Art of Gluten Free Baking.  You just don’t even know.   Apart from being just generally awesome and helpful (you can find her on Twitter as @fourchickens), she has THE BEST RECIPE for gluten free burger buns that we’ve tried (and we’ve tried a lot).  They were one of my early gluten free finds and for a while they were hubby’s day to day sandwich rolls.  We’ve since found a different sandwich loaf bread recipe we like, but these are still absolutely marvelous buns.  They LOOK LIKE BUNS (as you can see) and they smell like proper bread.

Now I’m not going to reproduce her recipe in full here, as it is totally HER recipe and you can find it here, but I will talk about some of the things that I tried that helped me master the recipe.

  1. Something I read somewhere…I think maybe in Gluten Free Cooking for Dummies, is that it helps stuff rise if everything is room temperature or warm.    So when I pull out the eggs (or in my case egg whites, as I usually just use those since I have a carton), I put them in a cup of hot water while I’m mixing up all the other ingredients (with the egg whites I put them in a small measuring cup, then nest that in a larger cup with hot water).
  2. I bought one of those muffin top pans to use a my bun pan, but the buns still wound up flat.  So I created bun rings out of aluminum foil (literally folding the lengths over and over until they were about an inch high, then folding the edges together to make a ring the size of the bun pan hole.  Be sure to spray the pan and inside of the rings thoroughly with cooking spray.  Mostly I’ve found that I don’t have a lot of seepage under the edge of the rings and the buns will rise up nicely into proper bun shapes.
  3. I wound up buying an oven thermometer as my initial several batches of these were coming out flat.  It’s beneficial to know exactly what temperature your oven REALLY cooks at because gluten free baking is a lot less forgiving than traditional baking.
  4. Depending on your altitude, humidity, and assorted other factors, your buns may be risen in a lot less time than Jeanne estimates.  Mine are typically ready in 20-25 minutes (rather than 45).  But as she does, I usually just sit them on the top of the stove while the oven preheats.
  5. It will behoove you to have an actual good bread knife, as these buns are still delicate and will absolutely tear up if you try to cut them with anything else.
  6. Sometimes the end result is a wee bit gummy on the inside.  I usually just split them and then toast them before serving with whatever burgers we’re having that meal.
  7. They freeze marvelously well.  Be sure to thaw completely before slicing.

5 thoughts on “Gluten Free Friday: Hamburger Buns

  1. I love it when something freezes well. Life is busy and we need things like this.

    My husband recently started Weight Watchers and I am on the look out of good recipes.

    Thanks!

    ~ Jenna

    1. Yes I was THRILLED when these froze well. Mostly I still eat normal buns myself, but these don’t last too long without molding if they’re just left out, so being able to freeze and toast them means no waste.

  2. I adore the aluminum foil idea. I was about to order some English muffin rings and was worried I would have to wait a week to make this recipe, but now I can do it tonight. Thanks!

    Also, Jeanne is one of my favorites. Love her recipes.

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