Yeast Water Hot Dog Buns

It had been forever since we had last used our yeast water – months in fact.  It had been hiding out in the fridge like a forgotten SD starter.  We wondered if it was still alive.  After building the 3 stage levain, and waiting for 16 hours for it to double we decided to feed the YW starter and let it hide out in the fridge some more.

We retarded the YW levain for 24 hours like we do most levains and hoped it would be a little better the next day but decided to add 1/8th tsp of instant yeast to the initial mix just in case.  Lucy whipped up a fast recipe that was sort of a weakly enriched dough with butter, egg and sugar using half AP and half bread flour from Winco and skim  milk for the dough liquid.

We also got to use our KA mixer for the first time in ages and really only use it for enriched dough now a days. We tossed everything in except the butter and beat the heck out of it for 4 minutes on speed 4 and then added the butter reducing the speed to 2 for another 4 minutes and back up to 4 for 2 more minutes.

We then let the dough rest for 30 minutes before doing 10 slap and folds followed by another 30 minute rest followed by 10 more slap and folds followed by an hour rest this time .  We did a stretch and fold to see how the dough was doing and decided to let it ferment for another hour before shaping.

After shaping the dough was left to proof for 2 ½ hours before brushing on the egg wash and firing up the oven to 375 F.  We baked then for 10 minutes before turning the pan around to get an even color on the buns.  Once they got good and brown we moved them to the cooling rack.

They sure looked good but will have to wait and see how they taste and look on the inside once dinner rolls around.  The buns were perfect.  Open soft and moist but sadly, no sourdough taste we love much.  Still these were fine hot dog buns and we are glad we keep YW around just for such things..