When you live a gluten-free life, there are times when you feel a void. Sometimes it’s a simple thing, like being able to eat your ice cream from a cone, being able to order take-out on a rough day, or being able to pay only $2 for cereal when it’s on sale. But for me, the other day it was being able to eat some Sloppy Joes on a bun. Yep, simple things. That’s when I decided to play in the kitchen a bit, and made these delicious “whole-wheat like” (but totally gluten-free) buns. We always ate whole wheat bread before going gluten-free, and the taste and texture are similar to what I remember. So, after 4 years of having to eat Sloppy Joes without a bun (blech), I got to top my bun with the messy, beefy mixture, some ketchup and mustard. And let me tell you; it was grand. 
Yields 6 buns
Ingredients:
- ½ cup warm water
- 1 tsp instant yeast
- 1 tsp granulated sugar or honey
- ¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp brown rice flour
- ¼ cup sorghum flour
- ¼ cup potato starch
- ¼ cup ground flax seed
- 2 Tbsp tapioca starch
- 1 ½ tsp xanthan gum
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 large egg plus 1 egg white
- 2 Tbsp oil
Directions:
- In a small bowl, combine the warm water, yeast, and sugar. Allow to sit for 10 minutes, or until it gets nice and bubbly.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the brown rice flour, sorghum flour, potato starch, ground flax seed, tapioca starch, xanthan gum, and salt.
- Add the apple cider vinegar, egg, egg white and oil to the yeast mixture. Stir to break up the eggs.
- With the mixer running on medium-low speed, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and mix for two minutes, scraping down the bowl if necessary.
- Lightly grease six 4-inch pot pie tins* and place them on a baking sheet. Divide the dough between the six tins, with each tin having about ¼ cup dough. Using a spoon dipped in water, smooth the dough into an even layer across the bottom of the tin.
- Let dough rise in a warm, draft-free place for 20-30 minutes, or until the dough has nearly doubled in size.
- While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Once the buns have risen, place baking sheet with the tins on it into preheated oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to remain in the tins for 5 minutes before removing buns to a wire cooling rack. Let cool before serving. Once they are cooled they can be stored in an air-tight container. Buns can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a re-sealable bag in the freezer. That way you can remove the buns from the freezer as you need them.
*The tins I used are 4 3/8″ x 1 3/16″, they are labeled as “extra-deep pie plates”.
The Sloppy Joes recipe that I enjoyed can be found over at Mommy Moment, where I am a monthly recipe contributor.
They look great, Jeanine ~ I have a question that maybe you could answer for me. I see many of the GF bread/bun recipes call for “cider” vinegar. The first loaf of GF bread I made for my son called for it and I followed the recipe and used it. He didn’t like it at all because of the strong vinegar smell and flavour. Since then I only use the regular white vinegar and he seems okay with that. Is there a particular reason that GF bread recipes call for the cider vinegar?? Thanks!!
Thanks, Elaine!
Interestingly enough, I don’t know. I’ve never been able to taste the apple cider vinegar, since it is usually only 1 teaspoon in the recipe, but I ‘think’ that using regular vinegar would give the same results? I’ve seen some recipes that have used lemon juice as well, I assume it is the acidity of it that adds something to the texture of the bread. Good question, now you have me thinking…
Someone told me that it was because apple cider vinegar was “healthier” than white vinegar. Not a good enough reason for me to use it if it means my son won’t eat the finished product ~ in my humble opionion! LOL
lol, I don’t think a teaspoon distributed through a whole loaf will make anyone healthier. If white vinegar works for you, go for it!
I think the vinegar issue is because regular vinegar is made from wheat grain. Supposedly the gluten protein is destroyed in the distillation process (therefore it’s gluten free) but people probably opt for the cider vinegar just to be on the safe side. I find rice vinegar works well too.
I think you may be right, Kathryn! Vinegar is one of those ‘debatable’ items, and only in the last few years have they said a definite “YES” to it being safe. Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!
Can you provide the dimensions of your pot pie pans? I have been struggling with hamburger buns and trying to figure out what kind of pans would provide enough structure — pot pie pans! Brilliant! I bought english muffin tins and the sides just weren’t high enough to give the necessary structure. I’ve been making dinner rolls in muffin tins but would love to be able to have a hamburger bun success. Thx!!
The tins I used are 4 3/8″ x 1 3/16″, they are labeled as “extra-deep pie plates”. PERFECT size for hamburger buns. I’ve tried english muffin rings as well, and they didn’t work for me. This works perfectly though, gives you a nice wide bun, that isn’t too high, since a thick bun isn’t what you want when you’re having burgers or sandwiches.
HTH!
They actually didn’t crumble while you ate them?? For real?
for real! The only mess I made while eating them was BESIDE the bun, from the sloppy joes falling out. I’ve baked them again since, and the whole family (not gluten-free) loved them to!
These look wonderful! Is there anything I can substitute for the flax seeds? Thanks for posting this recipe.
You could try using another 1/4 cup of sorghum flour, but I think that will change the texture of the buns. If you do try to substitute, let us know how it went!
Hey Jeanine – thanks for the quick response! I’m going to try 1/4 cup of almond meal in place of the flax & see what happens. Flax just tears my stomach up for some reason. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Just wondered if anyone has tried using empty tins such as the large size tuna cans to make buns. With the bottoms on and straight sides, set them on a cookie sheet, seems it should work????
Yes, Tamar! It does work!
An older friend of mine, who has been GF WAY longer than I, used to use tuna tins when baked herself buns. They work great! Just be sure to wash well before using. 
I don’t have those old pot pie tins anymore, so I’m going to use the Jumbo Muffin Pans
Kate
Hi Jeanine: Early on in this journey, I really missed having hamburgers so tried using my bread recipe in small ramekins and baked them for 15 minutes. They were really nice, but fell apart while trying to eat them with a meat paddy. I look forward to trying your recipe. It has been a long hot summer, missing having a hamburger or hot dog with the grandkids.
Good luck, Annette! Another thing is to make sure that your bun isn’t too thick, because then it has at tendency to fall apart more easily when eating it as a burger too.
Yesterday was football Sunday at my house so we made burgers. I made your gf buns & thank goodness I made 3 batches, enough to freeze, but the buns never made it to the freezer. My non gf friends chose your buns over the gluten full buns hands down! My son was impressed since the buns did not crumble nor were they hard. These were soft, but sturdy enough to hold lots of man-folk toppings, & boy did they pile it on. My son is happy & to me that’s all that matters. Thanks so much!
Woohoo!! TOUCHDOWN!!
So happy to hear that, Terri! And that’s hilarious that the gluten-eaters were picking the GF buns over the regular. How awesome is that?!? 
Thanks so much for sharing!!
Where can you find the extra deep pie tins”4 3/8″ x 1 3/16″?
Very excited for these..
Thanks
I found mine at the dollar store, you can very often find them at the grocery store too. They are the size of pot pies.
WOW! These are awesome. I only made a single recipe as you never know about GF recipes, but I will double it in the future. They refrigerate and freeze well. Toasted or not, you can’t lose. Thank you for posting this recipe and giving us hope of having something that not only tastes, but also feels like bread. I’ve already passed this on.
Awesome! Glad to hear that, Carol! And thank you for passing it along, I appreciate it.
did i do something wrong as mine did not rise??????
Is your yeast fresh or have you had it for a long time? Did you have the buns in a warm, draft-free place to rise? Those are the only trouble shooting things I can think of off hand. I’ve made these numerous times. By making 6 buns, they are fairly thin, perfect for putting something like sloppy joes or a hamburger on. If you want the buns to be thicker, you can make 4 instead of 6.
Thank you for your help…l have had the yeast for a few months and is quick rising.anyway after 1.5 hrs it did rise ….they were greatand thin but l like a thin bun…this is the first hamburger in 1yr.Pot pie tins were alittle bigger l think…..love your site..
I can hardly wait to get off work….rush over to the dollar store for pot pie tins, to the bulk store for some more brown flour rice…rush home and bake up these buns. When they are done and cooled to just warm, I am going to put some real butter on one…sit down and eat it. If they are as good as they look I just may cry and then tomorrow I am going to have a GIANT cheeseburger and if anyone gets between me and my plate I may bite them.
Can you make smaller rolls with a muffin tin?
I’m sure you can, you just may need to adjust the baking time slightly.
These were on my to-do-list for quite some time and today I had a day off from work and finally found the time to make them. Making the dough was a breeze, I spent more time converting the quantities of the ingredients into the metric system and cycling through my town in a vain effort to find the right pie tins! I ended up lining some ramekins (thanks @Annette for this clever idea) with cupcakeliners just adjusted the time a bit. And I put a baking dish with some hot water right below the tray with the buns. I learned this trick once from a French chef, makes a lot of baked things more moist and the crusts crispier. They looked a bit like bready muffins when I got them out of the oven, but that didn’t spoil the fun at all. Because o joy, o joy, o joy these were GOOD!!!
In our family of 5 we all eat GF (although it’s just my daughter who is the Celiac), except for bread. My husband who was at work while I baked them, couldn’t believe that they were:
A. glutenfree
B. this good
C. homemade
He concluded: ‘You probably picked up a recipe again from this Canadian woman’s website, didn’t you?’
They were moist, not crumbly at all, had a very good texture and no peculiar taste whatsoever. And the best thing: they really absorbed the juices of the meat very well. And that does not happen often with GF bread. The only thing that worries me now the most: where do I find the time to make all these gorgeous things? My family, friends and neighbours are requesting more and more cinnamonbuns, monkey bread, pancakes, sugar- and swirlcookies (none of them are Celiacs). Best not to let them try these buns, otherwise I probably have to give up my job and start fulltime baking!
I do apologize, this comment turned out way too long. I am not trying to take over your blog, it’s just that I am super enthousiastic, I learn a lot from baking your recipes. Loads of thanks Jeanine!
haha, that is wonderful!! Love it, thanks so much for the long response, Jools, gives me something to read.
Haha, that Canadian woman’s website – 
If I don’t have tapioca starch, can I use something else? I have everything else. I’m new at this GF baking so don’t know quite yet what I can substitute.
Stephanie, you could use cornstarch in place, it’s only 2 Tbsp, it should still work quite well.
Welcome to the GF journey!
Thanks so much!! I’m excited to try these today. You are super fast at replying as well!!!
Just wanted to say these are amazing. It wast first time GF baking and these were great. I didn’t have the proper tins so I used a muffin tin & baked for 22 min. Excellent !
Ah, that’s awesome!! Muffin tins work fine, just not for hamburgers (unless you’re making sliders? Hmmm….)
What I found that worked effectively for the tins were the 2 cup clear glass pyrex dishes. I had them anyway to make the 5 minute recipes from Roben Ryberg’s book.
You have more measuring cups than I do then, Tina.
Glad to hear they worked well though!
This page was very helpful to me. I never knew you could replace tapioca starch with corn starch . I will try this. Thank you for the information.
I made these yesterday, and they were wonderful! I had no flax seed on hand so I used ground almonds instead, as a previous commenter suggested, and it worked great. Thanks for another super recipe!
Fantastic! Glad to hear that, Andrea K!