Quick Hamburger Buns

We needed hamburger buns, so I decided to make some using a recipe I found for 40 minute Buns. I thought these should be quick, and they were. It uses a lot of yeast to get the fast rise, 2 tablespoons. Also there is oil and egg which should make a soft dough. I used Hodgson Mill Naturally White flour that I had on hand. I also added 1 teaspoon of dried onion to add a little flavor. These are supposed to be fast, to I took a picture of the clock as I started.

I let the yeast dissolve in the warm water then mixed all the ingredients by hand to get everything wet, then I turned on the oven to 425 using the Bread Bake setting that gets the oven completely hot before saying it is ready. With the oven heating, I used the KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough for 5 minutes as called for in the recipe.

I turned out the dough and formed it into 12 buns and placed them on my baking sheets. I used the last piece of parchment for one and oiled the other sheet. Here they are.

The clock is running and at this point it appears that we have used 30 of the 40 minutes promised in the recipe. The oven wasn't hot yet, so I covered the buns with cloths and misted the cloths with water while I waited for the oven to get hot. Note for future baking: Turn on the oven early, not at the last minute. The buns go into the oven at 5:38 for 8 to 12 minutes. I think I used about 11 minutes for baking. I used a cup of hot water in my hot cast iron frying pan in the bottom of the oven, so there was steam for these. They cracked during baking. Not good for hamburger buns. And the little bit of onion I put in turned out to be quite potent. This is what they looked like when out of the oven.
The crumb is OK. Nice and tight. The crust is crispy and a little too hard for a hamburger. I guess I will reduce the temperature next time to, oh, 375 and I won't use steam. Here is the crumb.
And the clock says we are done at 5:58, about 1 hour and 10 minutes for everything. I guess bread takes a little longer to make than you think and generally longer than the recipe says. Here is the last clock image.