I bet you remember the best burger you ever had. Not only was there probably a good hearty home made burger in there but the bun was no doubt, sweet and super soft.
Brioche burger buns have all of the characteristics and will wow your friends and family. Even better they're really easy to make. They turn a burger into a classy BBQ meal.
The secret for me is just to spend the effort up front kneading the dough and after that all will go fine.
Go on give them a try.
Ingredients for 12 buns
- 50ml warm milk
- 7g active dry yeast or 15g fresh yeast
- 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 750g bread flour
- 80g plain flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 25g unsalted butter, softened• Sesame seeds (optional)
Method
- Mix the milk with 350ml of warm water, the sugar and the yeast and stir. Leave for 5 minute for the yeast to start to bubble.
- In a mixing bowl add both flours and work in the butter with your fingers until it has broken down into crumb sized pieces. I do this in my kitchen mixer bowl.
- Add the salt and 1 egg to the flour and mix in.
- Now mix in the frothing yeast mix. The dough should come together and be quite sticky. You may need to add more water depending on the flour. I've added quite a lot of extra water before. I use a mixer for this.
- On a flat surface knead the dough. There is no need to flour or oil the surface, the dough will stick to start with but the more you knead the more it will come away. Use a dough scraper just to lift it off and back into the dough. Knead for at least 10 minutes, the dough should be very elastic and smooth. Take a look at Paul Hollywood's kneading video for great technique.
- Lightly oil the sides of your mixer bowl and drop the dough back in covering with cling film. Leave to prove at normal room temperature for about 1-2 hours until the dough has doubled in size.
- Knock back the dough (basically squawk out the air). A quick knead again does this.
- Form the dough into a round ball and cut into quarters. Then cut each of these quarters into thirds. You'll have 12 pieces of dough, hopefully all a similar size.
- Form each of the 12 pieces of dough into a ball by tucking under the edges with your fingers. Place the formed balls of dough onto a silicon baking sheet on a baking tray with 2 inches between each ball.
- Cover with a tea towel and leave to prove again. The dough needs to double in size. You'll find that some of the rolls join together, I think this makes them look great.
- Once they've doubled in size, brush the rolls with an egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
- Either put the rolls into a preheated oven at 200C for 15 minutes (13 minutes in a fan assisted oven) or onto your baking stone on the preheated Big Green Egg (225C on the dome thermometer).
- Once golden remove them and let them cool on a cooling rack.
These buns are great with all sorts of BBQ'd meats and vegetables including my pulled pork cheeks, home made burgers, veggie burgers and even some home smoked cheese with pickle.