This easy recipe makes hamburger buns in 2.5 hours start to finish. Fresh homemade buns will amaze the beer drinking boys at your next barbeque, and more important, impress the pretty country girls that sometimes tag along. Not only can you make these buns any size you want and serve your burgers on fresh from the oven bread, they are much cheaper to make than store bought “quality” buns and have no nasty chemicals.
I like to shape these into beget style buns and use for sandwiches when I go to the lake, on a picnic, or during a road trip. You can also serve the begets at a formal dinner party as a pre-entre snack – great for dipping with olive oil and spices.
This is a somewhat high calorie bun as it uses both butter and sugar. While this is a bad, the good thing is the sugar promotes rapid yeast rise that leads to a less dense bun and the butter helps keep the bun from crumbling, which is important during a road trip. The butter also helps the bun stay moist at the lake or while hiking to your favorite picnic spot. You have the option to top the buns with sesame or poppy seeds, but that’s a personal call.
Ingredients
- 1,000 g flour – bread or multi-purpose
- 20 g kosher salt
- 15 g dry yeast
- 50 g sugar
- 80 g butter – cold and sliced thin
- 50 g powder milk – probably not part of your inventory
- 100 g eggs ~ 2 eggs
- 600 g water
- sesame – optional
Process
- Mise en Place – measure and prepare you ingredients in advance.
- Mix dry ingredients
- Add flour and powder milk to a mixing bowl.
- Place the salt and yeast opposite each other in the bowl – salt is the enemy of yeast.
- Stir on low for ~2 mins.
- Add water, eggs, and butter and continue mixing for ~4 mins.
- Increase speed to medium (#4 on Kitchenaid mixer) and mix ~3 mins.
- First Proof:
- Roll dough out to ~1/4 inch and fold along the length (first fold).
- Then fold along the width (second fold).
- Place on floured tray and cover with film.
- Let rest at room temperature for 60 mins.
- Make buns:
- Divide dough into 50 g sections for buns (~30) or ~200 g sections for bagets (~18). For larger buns/bagets, use larger sections.
- It’s a good idea to weigh the dough so you make consistent dimensioned buns.
- Gently roll dough into balls then flatten on floured table. Use your fingers to rub/roll into bun/baget shape.
- Place on lined tray (silpat or parchment paper) with smooth side of bun facing up. Leave enough space for dough to rise (~1″ separation).
- If you want a crisper/browner finish that shines brush top with an egg wash. (I usually don’t because I want the baget to be soft).
- If adding sesame, sprinkle on now.
- For a pretzel roll, brush with egg wash, use a sharp knife to cut an “X” on top and sprinkle with kosher salt.
- Divide dough into 50 g sections for buns (~30) or ~200 g sections for bagets (~18). For larger buns/bagets, use larger sections.
- Second Proof – rest buns 30 mins; ideally at 28C but room temp is okay.
- Bake – While buns are resting, preheat oven to 160 deg C. (320 F). Bake with fan on for ~12 mins or until tops start to brown. Non-fan times will be longer (~5 mins) and you should increase the temperature 25 deg F.
- Cool on rack for at least a half-hour before serving, unless you are serving as a dinner aperitif, then let cool for 5 mins and serve.
