Thin Sandwich Buns

Total Time: 1 hr 42 mins Preparation Time: 1 hr 30 mins Cook Time: 12 mins

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons canola oil
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
• 1 teaspoon salt

Recipe

• 1 in a bowl sprinkle the sugar over the warm water, then do the same with the yeast. add the egg and oil and combine. in a separate container, use a fork or a whisk to stir together the flour, bran, wheat gluten, and salt. add 1/2 of this mixture to the wet ingredients and blend. this is the sponge.
• 2 let rise 30 - 45 minutes.
• 3 add rest of flour mixture and knead for about 5 minutes. i use my stand mixer with the dough attachment. this dough will be sticky.
• 4 spray 2 cookie sheets with cooking spray. divide dough into 16 equal portions. this is a wet dough so instead of adding any additional flour, i weigh the dough on a food scale and divide it by 16. then i weigh out each portion and put 8 on each cookie sheet. don't worry about how it looks now.
• 5 take a 4" biscuit cutter and place it over one of the dough portions. if you wet the inside of the cutter as well as your fingers you can spread the dough into a perfect circle by using your fingers to flatten it to the inside edge of the biscuit cutter. (these will be very thin but they will rise). remove the cutter, re-wet the inside and use it to do the same thing to the remaining 15 buns.
• 6 preheat oven to 350 degrees. let the buns rise until double in bulk, about 30-45 minutes.
• 7 bake in a preheated 350 degree oven 12-15 minutes until golden brown. don't overbake. cool the buns and then cut them in half for sandwich buns.
• 8 edit note: since i first started making these i've made 2 changes. one is that i make them in muffin top pans sprayed with pam. no cutting involved.
• 9 the other thing is that i use oat fiber instead of the wheat bran. i ordered oat fiber online. it is not the same as oat bran and is in many things these days, so i decided to try it instead of wheat bran. it is very high fiber, few calories, and pleasant tasting. just use in moderation. in this recipe i use only 1/4 cup. it is 5 calories and 26 grams of fiber for the 1/4 cup. also, it is more mild tasting than the wheat bran.
• 10 each bun has 108 calories; 1g fat; 5g protein; 20g carbohydrate; 4g dietary fiber; 13mg cholesterol; 124mg sodium.