2015 Cooking Club Week 24: Chinese Hot Dog Buns

RobertFoster

I had never heard of Chinese Hot Dog Buns before I came across this recipe one day by accident. I bookmarked it because it looked nice, and eventually got around to trying it.

Apparently they're a popular snack you can get in Asian bakeries. They're similar in concept to sausage rolls, but with a lovely soft, chewy dough.

The recipe is straight forward, but there is some downtime between steps to allow yeast and dough to do their thing.

Ingredients
10 Smoked Hot Dogs
1 egg
Sesame seeds
370g Plain Flour
240ml Milk
3 tbsp Sugar
2 tsp Active Yeast (1x7g sachet)
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Sea Salt
45g Unsalted Butter (if you only have salted butter, use 1g less sea salt)
Mustard and ketchup (optional)

Method
Heat the milk for a minute in the microwave. It should be warm, but not overly so. Stir the sugar into the milk, making sure it dissolves. Add the yeast and stir. Leave to stand for 15 minutes; the yeast will froth up.



Mix the flour, baking powder, and sea salt together. Melt the butter. Add the milk and butter to the flour, and knead for 10 minutes. It will be quite a sticky dough, so make sure you have an escape plan Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film, and leave it to prove for an hour. It should double in size.



Divide the dough into 10 and roll into balls. Let them stand for 20 minutes to expand.

The dough is springy, so you'll need to do the following one at a time. Roll a dough ball into a rope roughly 2.5 times the length of a hot dog. Wrap the dough at an angle around the hot dog, leaving the ends of the sausage exposed. Keep the ends of the dough underneath to keep it from unravelling. Repeat for the remainder of the hot dogs.



Preheat your oven to 200°C, and cover a baking tray with baking paper. Place the hot dogs on the tray, making sure to leave enough room for expansion. Whisk the egg and brush the hot dogs with it. Sprinkle some sesame seeds over the dough. Bake for 15-18 minutes.



They'll be too hot to eat right away, so allow to cool slightly. I like them just a couple of minutes from the oven, but room temperature is nice also. If you're reheating in a microwave, 30 seconds on high should be enough.

If you're a fan of ketchup and/or mustard on hot dogs, by all means have some at the ready for dipping. I have experimented with adding sauce to pre-wrapped dogs (like hot dog lattices), but wrapping the dough was slightly more difficult, and the result not worth the effort.

Mrs Fox

I lived on these growing up! Love the sweetness and softness of the bun. Some variety include sweet chilli sauce with carrot/pea/sweetcorn mix and cheese on top.

jordata

These look gorgeous. Hungry just looking at them. Must give the recipe a try. Thanks for posting.

These look beautiful. Not a big fan of hot dogs so may try with another form of sausage. Lovely photos and layout, too.

Cheshire Cat

I will definitely try these! They look yummy :P

toadfly

Ohh looks lovely, defo trying these out but with different sausage, sorry OP can't stand hotdogs but other than that they look great. I'd sprinkle sesame seeds on everything

Gloomtastic!

Great post OP. Will make fantastic kids' lunches for school. Thank you!

gerrybbadd

Those are great!

We have hot dogs once a week in our house, and i'd never have thought of doing this.

Thank you OP

IvyTheTerrible

Oooh I make these with ready-made puff pastry, but I'd say they are much nicer with homemade pastry! I'll defo give these a try.

homemadecider

Thanks for this recipe. I showed it to my husband tonight and he was nearly licking my laptop screen. We are going to make these next weekend, I'll report back then!

gerrybbadd

I made these at the weekend. Had no sesame seeds, so I put a little toasted sesame oil into the dough mix.

Very nice, and quite filling. The only thing I found was, the franks could be hotter.

Cheshire Cat

Made these tonight. Served with a soup. A great meal for a foul day like today!
Sons and hubby loved them :-)
I used white and black sesame seeds to sprinkle the buns.

homemadecider

We had these for dinner tonight. Thanks OP, this is a great recipe. The dough was a little sweet and just lovely. I'm not mad on frankfurters so I pre-cooked some pork & mustard sausages and used them. I found them very filling - I had two and then gave up (though I might eat the third one after a few glasses of wine later ). I'll definitely make these again, thank you!



We had some dough left over as we only cooked 7 sausages, so we shaped the leftover dough into breadsticks and ate them dipped in various condiments. Delicious.

Princess Peach

Forgot to post to say I made these and loved them. Took a bit of time but really easy and tasty Will make again for sure.

dixiefly

Basic question I know but what brand / source for the smoked hot dogs do ye use?

Day Lewin

Looks excellent, I love the photo format, very clear.

RobertFoster

dixiefly wrote: »

Basic question I know but what brand / source for the smoked hot dogs do ye use?

You can get them in packs of ten from a supermarket. These are the Aldi ones, for example:



I've seen Tesco and Supervalu versions also. Keep an eye out in the pre-packed cooked meat section of your supermarket.

You can also get hot dogs in jars; there mightn't be as many in the jar, but I think they're slightly bigger.


Thanks for all the pictures and comments. I'm glad people are enjoying them

Cheshire Cat

I used the Aldi sausages pictured above. I think they are the nicest you can get in Ireland. The sausages from a jar aren't as nice but would do if you are stuck.

Disclaimer: I'm German and grew up eating Frankfurters purchased from the local butcher.