Nice Buns.

For a while now, I've been looking for a good recipe for hamburger buns that could be made entirely from food storage, not just in case I find myself living off of my food storage, but also for all those times when I forget to buy hamburger buns and have something like, well, hamburgers on the menu. But I really wanted them to be good buns and not just regular bread dough that's shaped like buns. So when I saw this recipe, originally from the New York Times featured on SmittenKitchen.com, I knew I had to try it.

The original recipe calls for a few fresh ingredients--eggs, milk, and butter--which, with a little tweaking can be swapped out for long-term storage items. But before I tried it with the substitutions, I wanted to be sure that the recipe was good to begin with, so I made it exactly as the recipe directs. You know, to isolate the variables. Gotta keep this scientific. The buns were amazing. So much better than the cheap-o, eight-for-a-dollar ones we usually buy. I know, that's probably not saying much, but trust me. My two kids, who usually discard their buns after about two bites, were begging me for them. Plain. With no meat. Wow.

So I decided I'd try them again using food storage to see if they still turned out. The results--at least, as far as I could tell--were identical. Same fluffy texture, same golden-brown color, same everything. The only thing that presented even a little bit of a quandary was the egg wash. I had never tried making an egg wash from powdered eggs, and was a little nervous that it might not work. So here are the results:

(Click on it if you want to see it bigger)

I did one with a powdered egg wash (just one reconstituted egg without any additional water), one with a fresh egg wash (1 egg + 1 tbsp. water), and one with no egg wash. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the powdered egg wash. It was very slightly lighter in color than the fresh egg wash, but other than that it worked the same, no funny tastes or textures or splotchiness. In fact, after I took a picture, it got mixed back in with all the others and I couldn't even tell which one it was. I had to sample a few potential candidates to make sure I tasted the one with the powdered egg wash and even after I tried them all, I still didn't know which one it was. The ones without an egg wash were good, too; they probably looked the most like the cheap ones I buy in the store. Their biggest problem was that the sesame seeds wouldn't stick, but I don't know that sesame seeds really add that much to a hamburger anyway.

So I guess in the future I won't be afraid to use powdered eggs to do egg washes. I might even try one on a pie sometime, although I'm still kind of a pie novice and don't know if I want to mess around with proven methods yet. Anyway, with a good bun recipe, you could easily shred up some canned beef, chicken, or even pork (which I have tried and it's actually pretty good) with some BBQ sauce, spoon it onto one of these buns, and have a great base for a meal. Here's the recipe, which was actually not too complicated or difficult, either:

Light Brioche Burger Buns

Ingredients:
-3 tablespoons warm milk [1-1/2 teaspoons powdered milk + 3 tablespoons water]
-2 teaspoons active dry yeast
-2-1/2 tablespoons sugar
-2 large eggs [1 tablespoon whole egg powder + 2 tablespoons warm water = 1 egg; double for 2]
-3 cups bread flour
-1/3 cup all-purpose flour
-1-1/2 teaspoons salt
-2-1/2 tablespoons butter, softened [stored long-term in the freezer or bottled, if you're brave]
-sesame seeds (optional)

1. In a glass measuring cup, combine 1 cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, beat 1 egg.

2. In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Using a dough scraper, stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Scrape dough onto clean, unfloured counter and knead, scooping dough up, slapping it on counter and turning it, until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. [The dough is super, super sticky, but resist the urge to add more flour than you absolutely have to, as this will make them drier and denser. If you have one, you can knead it in a stand mixer with a dough hook, easy as pie.]

3. Shape dough into a ball and return it to bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours. [For me, it only took one hour.]

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using dough scraper, divide dough into 8 equal parts. [The first time made these, I made eight and I felt like they were too huge for a regular, 1/4-lb. hamburger. The second time I made ten and it seemed just about right. ] Gently roll each into a ball and arrange 2 to 3 inches apart on baking sheet. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel [I didn't notice the "kitchen towel" part until just now. I covered mine with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray and it worked well.] and let buns rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours. [For me, this was just under an hour.]

5. Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 400 degrees with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with 1 tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if desired. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely. [And if you want to fully experience their awesomeness, definitely toast them, maybe with a little butter.]

Yield: 8-10 buns.

Incredible, Semi-Edible Egg Powder

This post turned out to be kind of long. If you want to just know what I concluded from testing two different powdered egg products, just scroll to the bottom.

For starters, let's just get this out on the table: I have spent a somewhat significant amount of time and money on the emergency preparedness/food storage resources available at Macey's. The main reasons for this are that 1) they are the easiest to obtain where I live, 2) they seem to be the most reasonably priced, especially compared to internet vendors, and 3) they carry a pretty decent variety. I also buy a lot of food storage from the LDS cannery, but they carry a pretty limited number of products. Anyway, a while ago I bought a #10 can of powdered eggs from Macey's to see if they could be useful in my food storage. Here is the verdict:

First I used them in one of these Betty Crocker cookies-in-a-pouch things:


I didn't take a picture of the cookies, but I couldn't tell any difference in the appearance or the taste from when I had made the exact same cookies before. Score! That means that you don't have to axe any favorite baking recipes from your year's supply because they call for fresh eggs. All you have to do is add one tablespoon of egg powder to your dry ingredients and two tablespoons of water to the wet for each egg and voila! In fact, if you wanted to create your own cookies-in-a-pouch mixes, you could put all of your dry ingredients in a ziploc bag with some egg powder for the eggs and all you would have to do is add water and oil (or butter or shortening or whatever). Just like Betty!

(As a side note, I think those cookies mixes are pretty good. In the past I've been kind of a cookie snob and thought that all cookies must be made from scratch, but they tasted good and it made way more cookies than I would have thought a bag that size could.)

After I tried them in the cookies, I thought I'd put them to the ultimate test and make scrambled eggs out of them, as I had read in a couple of different places about other people doing it. Here is what they looked like reconstituted in the frying pan:

And here is what they looked like cooked:


And here is how they tasted in one word: blech.

I will definitely store these for baking. They are undetectable in baked goods, have a storage life of 5-10 years, and are relatively cheap (if you buy them on sale this week at Macey's, a can costs $14.99, which is about 80 cents for a dozen). But if I ever have to feed my family exclusively from our food storage, we're going without scrambled eggs. I could definitely gag them down with enough hot sauce or ketchup, but they're definitely the "if it was scrambled powdered eggs or starvation" kind of option.

Also, when I went to take a picture of the can, I noticed that I had two different products:













At first I wasn't sure if there was any difference between whole eggs and egg mix, so I checked the ingredients, which are as follows:

whole eggs: 100% pasteurized whole egg solids

egg mix: pasteurized whole eggs, non-fat dry milk, vegetable oil (may contain soybean oil or corn oil), salt.

I had done my previous testing with the whole eggs, so to be thorough I tried scrambling the egg mix. The end product from the egg mix was a tiny bit better; it looked and tasted a little more like fresh scrambled eggs. But given the choice between eggs made from egg mix and no eggs, I would probably still choose no eggs.

Another key difference between the whole eggs and the egg mix is that it takes only 1 tablespoon of whole eggs to make an egg and 2 tablespoons of egg mix for the same. And according to the can info, a can of whole eggs will reconstitute into 226 eggs, while a can of egg mix makes only 96 for the same amount of money.

Conclusion: Powdered "whole eggs" are great for adding baked goods that call for eggs into your year's supply. But reconstituted and scrambled, they taste... pretty bad. Powdered "egg mix" is a lot more expensive than powdered "whole eggs" and doesn't taste much better.