Guest Post: Bacon Cheeseburger Buns

Hey everyone! It’s Kim’s sister, Samantha, again. For someone my age, I have a HUGE collection of cookbooks. Honestly, it’s a little ridiculous. However, I don’t actually look at them or use them that often. So, I made it one of my goals this year to cook more with them, and expand my mental recipe repertoire. 

The other day, I was going through some of them and I came across a binder full of recipes for my high school Foods classes. I saw this one in particular and I remember it actually being pretty tasty. Now, you might be rolling your eyes and thinking, “Is she really showing us some dumb high school Home Ec. recipe?” You bet I am! So here it goes.

Bacon Cheeseburger Buns
(serves 4)

​Buns:

1 ½ tsp active dry yeast
½ tsp sugar (for the yeast)
¼ cup hot water
¼ cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar (for the dough)
1 tablespoon oil
1 egg
½ tsp salt
1 ½ -  1 ¾ cup flour (more if needed)
 
Filling:

4 slices of bacon, diced
300g ground beef
1/3 small onion, chopped
½ tsp salt
A dash of pepper
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1 tablespoon of margarine, melted

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve ½ tsp of sugar in hot water, sprinkle yeast over top and let sit till foams up, about 10 minutes. Do not stir.

Stir yeast and add milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, oil, egg, salt and 1 cup of flour; combine until smooth.

Stir in remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth elastic about 6 - 8 minutes.

Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

While dough is rising, in a large frying pan over medium, cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan onto paper towel. Drain the grease.

Add ground beef, onion, salt and pepper to frying pan. Cook over medium heat until meat is no longer pink. (You will need to drain out any fat and liquids the form.)

Add bacon and cheese into the pan. Cook and stir until the cheese is melted. Remove from the heat.

After the dough has risen, divide it in half. Roll each half into a 6x12 inch rectangle. Cut each rectangle into 2 “squares.” (I put squares into quotations because let’s be honest, they are not perfect squares.)

Divide meat mixture between the four squares of dough. Bring corners together in the center and pinch to seal. Make sure no filling can get out.

Place on greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Brush each bun with melted margarine and serve warm with ketchup or any condiment/sauce or your choice.

If you want, you can add some extra cheese on top of the meat mixture before you close up the dough.

You can make these into smaller sizes and have them more as a finger food appetizer for a party, with a good dipping sauce on the side! I’m sure they would be a huge hit.

These are honestly delicious and so easy to make. You can refrigerate the extras, if there are any, and just pop them in the microwave to reheat. I’m saving the extras for lunches this week! 

Until next time!

​Samantha