Hot Dog Flowers
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Recipe courtesy of Molly Yeh

Hot Dog Flowers

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  • Level: Intermediate
  • Total: 2 hr 30 min (includes rising time)
  • Active: 30 min
  • Yield: 4 jumbo or 8 regular-sized hot dog flowers
These are inspired by one of my favorite things ever to get at a Chinese bakery, hot dog buns! When I was growing up, the kind that I would get would simply be a puffy round bun with a hot dog in the center. But recently on Instagram, I've been seeing them shaped like these beautiful flowers and fell in love immediately! It's basically a bunch of pigs in blankets stuck together. And they are such cozy pigs because the dough is really soft and a little sweet. In a nod to my Chicago upbringing, there's some mustard in the dough, which adds a nice zing.

Ingredients

Dough:

Flowers:

Directions

  1. For the dough: In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the bread flour, sugar, mustard powder, yeast and salt and whisk together. In a liquid measuring cup, add the water, yellow mustard and egg and whisk together. Add the wet ingredients and the coconut oil to the dry ingredients and stir to form a ball.
  2. Attach the dough hook to the mixer and knead for 7 to 10 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl and the hook once or twice. Form the dough into a ball and transfer to an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let sit on the counter until the dough has puffed up by about half, about 1 hour. Turn the dough out onto a floured countertop and divide into 4 pieces (or 8, if using regular-sized hot dogs).
  3. For the flowers: Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Flatten each piece of dough and roll it all the way around a hot dog. Cut each dough-wrapped hot dog crosswise into 6 pieces and arrange in a flower design on the baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and allow to proof in a warmish place for 30 minutes (they should be a little jiggly).
  4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  5. Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl and brush each flower with the egg wash, then sprinkle with the mustard seeds. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes and eat warm with Chinese hot mustard.