If your true love is a carnivore like mine, then today’s recipe will be a big hit! Make your meat-eater happy with these fun Heart Shaped Hamburgers. (Sorry for the photo of raw meat right up front…)
On a side note – if you don’t want to make burgers, you could also cut the meat into heart shapes for use with pasta (think meatballs, except in the shape of hearts).
We’ll start with the dough for the buns then move on to the burgers.
Ingredients for the buns.
Start by scalding milk with oil and sugar.
Once the milk mixture has cooled to lukewarm, you can add in a package of yeast.
Sprinkle yeast over the milk and let rest for a minute.
Stir in yeast and four cups of flour.
Place the pan in a warm area, cover with a tea towel and let the yeast do its thing for about an hour. I like to put my pan in front of the fire. It is warm and makes the dough smell heavenly.
When they’ve puffed up a bit, bake them in a 350 degree oven until the tops are golden brown.
Slice open and build that perfect burger. (And you might not even need to slice, since the two hearts are easily separated.)
For the burgers, add whatever spices you like to the meat, then flatten it out to whatever thickness you like. I think ours were about 1/2 inch thick.
Using the same cookie cutter (so the meat and buns are somewhat uniform), but out heart shapes in the ground beef.
How fun is that? Grill them or fry them or cook them however you like.
(I may have begged until CC cooked our outside on the BBQ. Good thing the snow is gone and the temps warmed up yesterday!).
Once the meat is cooked, place it on your bun, add your favorite toppings and enjoy!
Hamburger Hearts
Dough
2 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 package active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tbsp. salt
Hamburgers
1-2 pounds of ground beef
spices
your choice of condiments
Scald the milk, oil and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat (bring heat to nearly a boil, but don’t let it boil!). Set aside and cool to lukewarm (think temperature of a baby’s bottle). Sprinkle yeast on top of milk and let rest for one minute.
Add four cups of the flour and stir until just combined. It is going to be sticky. Cover with a tea towel and set in a warm place for an hour.
Remove the towel and add baking powder, baking soda, salt and final 1/2 cup of flour. Stir to combine.
Roll out and cut into heart-shapes with a cookie cutter. I used one that was about four-inches wide. Place a single layer of hearts on a baking sheet, then place a second layer on top of the first (like you’re making a heart sandwich, except without the filling).
Cover with a tea towel and return to a warm area to rise for another 20-30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
When dough is ready, bake for about 10- 15 minutes, until the tops are a lovely golden brown.
You should be able to easily separate the tops and bottoms of your heart-sharped buns, but if not, just got them in half.
While the buns are baking, mix your ground beef with whatever spices you like. Pat it out to whatever thickness you like your burgers then use the same cookie cutter you cut out the buns with to cut out your burgers.
Cook (grill, fry, toss on the barbecue – whatever you like), then slide onto the bun. The bread will be just slightly bigger because it expands and the meat tends to shrink a little.
Top with your favorite condiments and listen to your meat-eater praise your efforts.
With the cookie-cutter I used, I had 24 hearts or 12 buns. The number you get will depend on the size of your cookie cutter. I used a 1 1/2 pound package of ground beef and got six burgers. You can cut the bread recipe in half if you want to make a smaller batch.
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