Hot dog buns

In large bowl or bowl of your stand mixer, weigh all ingredients. 

Knead in your stand mixer for 8 minutes or if you are kneading by hand, knead for 12 to 15 minutes until you have a smooth, non-sticky dough.

Add dough to a lightly oiled bowl and allow to proof on the counter or a warm place in your kitchen for at least 1 hour.

After an hour, roll out into hot dog shapes. I weigh my dough balls for consistency and shoot for 60 to 65 gram weight unless you're dealing with longer hot dogs and then you might want to measure each one to 75 to 80 grams. You should be able to get 10 to 12 hot dog buns out of one batch of dough. If you don't have a scale, you can just make 10 to 12 similarly-sized dough pieces.

Place each hot dog dough piece onto a sheet pan in a row about 1/2 inch apart. I can usually get 9 across in a regular-sized sheet pan. 

Cover your dough with lightly oiled plastic wrap or cover the sheet pan with another sheet pan. Let the shaped dough rise for 1 hour.

Near the end of your rise time, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). 

Crack one whole egg into a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of water. Beat egg until everything is fully combined. Paint each bun very carefully with the egg wash, this helps the buns brown consistently. 

Optional: if you want to add poppy seeds, sprinkle each egg-washed bun with poppy seeds. 

Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes. I typically peek into the oven to check for the bread color at 20 minutes.

If you did not add poppy seeds to your buns, once the rolls have been removed from the oven, I microwave 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter for 20 to 30 seconds until it's all melted and then paint it on top of your buns. This is an optional step, but it helps the rolls have a tasty and still soft outside. If you add poppy seeds, painting them with melted butter will remove a lot of the seeds, so you can skip the butter painting. 

Once the rolls are fully cool, store them in a bag or container for up to a week.