Homemade Burger Buns!


 

RCBaughn

TVWBB Super Fan
I don't know how many of you guys bake bread a lot, but if I am going to make myself a burger I always bake my own bread. I find the texture of a bought bun just can't stand up to the onslaught of beef and toppings that I throw on a burger. I usually make at least a 10 ounce patty that way I only have to eat one burger and not two. Less chance of the burger getting cold before you eat it too.

But here is my bun recipe, if you decide to try it please post up a picture. I would love to see other peoples results.

Light Brioche Burger Buns

-5.5 oz KABF
-5.5 oz KAAP
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp ADY
-1 tablespoon honey
-1 egg
-2 tablespoons butter
-1/4 cup milk, buttermilk, goat milk, or coconut milk
-Slightly less than half cup water

Mix salt and flour in mixing bowl of stand mixer. Next add honey to milk/water mixture and microwave till 115 degrees. Add yeast to liquid and allow to proof till foamy. Add liquid mixture and egg to the flour and just knead until the flour has absorbed most of the liquid, maybe 45 seconds. Turn the mixture off and allow dough to rest for 10 mins to hydrate. After hydrated, continue to knead on medium speed for about 3-4 minutes, then add softened butter one tablespoon at a time until each are fully incorporated. Continue to knead for 4-5 mins or until the dough is extremely smooth and windowpanes well. This is a fairly sticky dough and will barely stick to the bottom of the bowl. Grease bowl and cover dough and allow to rise till doubled, 1-1/2 hours.

Remove dough from bowl and gently punch dough down and degas large bubbles. Cut dough into four equal portions by weight, which will be big big, like 140 grams. Feel free to make smaller buns if you want. Take each portion and form into a very tight ball and place on pan covered in parchment and gently press dough to flatten slightly. Allow to proof till dough doesn't spring back when poked but still resilient, about an hour or so. Brush buns with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds of choice, slash tops in an x pattern and place into a preheated 400 degree oven on the middle rack. After 7 mins remove the buns and brush them with the egg wash again, but don't brush the slash cuts only the crust of the bun. Return to oven and bake till fairly dark brown. I usually go for 7-8 minutes more. Allow buns to cool and either enjoy or freeze them for later! They freeze great and the recipe is easily doubled.

*****Tip - I fill my measuring cup with milk to 1/4 cup then with water until it is exactly half way between 1/2 and 3/4 cup, which is why I said slightly less than 1/2 cup water. If anyone wants to do that math feel free. Lol.


Good luck to anyone who tries these, and here is a picture of what you can expect if you bake them!

SesameBrioche.jpg
 
I am into baking bread (even more so than smoking on the WSM :eek: ) . They look mahvellous!! I love any product with some variation of seeds on them.

Have you made them with 100% regular all purpose flour? Name brands aren't needed IMO to make a good product is why I ask.

ps: Acronyms are not always your friend.
 
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No doubt people who bake a lot (not me) know these acronyms. I figured out the King Arthur ones right away. I figured Y must be yeast, but I don't bake enough to know that AD was active dry. See, you do learn something new every day! :)

Regards,
Chris
 
Those look fantastic. We use an even simpler recipe (which isn't at hand while I write this) for brioche but my wife adores it! Great looking buns and I want to try your recipe soon!
 
RCBaughn,
You're on the pizzamaking forum too aren't you?! What a small world. Buns look fabulous. But with the magic you do with pizza, buns have gotta be child's play.
 
RCBaughn,
You're on the pizzamaking forum too aren't you?! What a small world. Buns look fabulous. But with the magic you do with pizza, buns have gotta be child's play.

Wow, thank you so much for the compliment! The buns are pretty easy to make, much easier than a great pizza dough to say the least. Shaping them can be a bit tough though, and getting them perfectly round requires a good bit of practice and I still don't get it right all the time. For this recipe I would definitely recommend weighing your dough balls when shaping. I've had some, when splitting it up by eye, turn out to be much larger and take a good bit longer to bake than the smaller ones. That can be very aggravating in the baking process and leads you to have to make burger patties in all sorts of sizes and sometimes shapes. LOL.

And yes I am, I am fairly active over at the pizzamaking.com forum. Is that your screen name over on the pizza forum too? I share this name with most every forum I join. I got here by the way of a new Performer and Smokey Joe I bought and looking for tips on cooking with charcoal since I have never tried it. I've only cooked with a Weber Spirit E-310 gas grill and have always had good luck with it, so I thought I'd give their charcoal products a try.

I think it might be interesting to try to bake these buns in a large dutch oven on the grill, or maybe even on a pizza stone. I know the results would be great if you had a two stone setup with one stone raised above the one on the grates, but I haven't got around to fabbing up something like that. The commercially made 2stone pizza grill setup is way out of budget for me, so bread baking hacks will have to come by way of homemade. Haha. I do think a smokey charcoal flavor would be nice, especially since these would take a good bit longer to bake than a pizza and actually have time to absorb some of that taste and aroma.

But give them a go, I think you'd like the texture and taste for sure! If you wanted to really up the flavor you could replace about 20% of the flour and water by weight with sourdough starter. I usually just pull my starter straight from the fridge and throw in a bit, around a quarter cup I'd say. I eyeball my dough texture at this point, so using weights would be ideal till you learn the dough and how it handles. The starter wouldn't promote any extra lift, but would give the bread a good acidic punch in flavor.
 
rcbaughn,

My name is adletson at the pizzamaking forum too. I have been using the Reinhart bun recipe, but I like the option of a starter in this one. Where did you get your starter? Did you start it yourself?
 
My starter is the Ischia strain from Italy. You can find it on the web for a great price and the flavor is amazing. I keep mine at 100% hydration usually and it is very hearty. It will raise a bread fairly quickly (much quicker than the homemade ones I have tried) and offers just the right amount of tang. And if you want to up the sourness just abuse it a little bit in the feeding schedule and the acid will build up and give you all the flavor you can handle! Ha.
 

 

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