Chef John's Burger Buns

Chef John (John Mitzewich) publishes instructional cooking vids on the web. His recipes get reposted on lots of sites. I've not tried this burger bun recipe, but it's different enough from most other such recipes (and it looks pretty good) that I thought I'd post it here.


Hamburger Buns Chef John

1 (.25 ounce) pkg active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp or 7g)
1 cup warm water (105°F)
1/2 cup flour
Whisk together in bowl of mixer. Let stand until foamy, 10-15 minutes.

1 large egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons white sugar (some say just 1)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
Whisk into yeast mixture. Then add the flour.

Scant 3 cups flour, adding more if needed.
Mix on low speed w/dough hook, 5-6 min. Poke and prod the dough with a silicone spatula; if large amounts of dough stick to the spatula, add a little more flour.


Prep a baking sheet by lining it with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Transfer finished dough onto a floured work surface; dough will be sticky and elastic but not stick to your fingers. Form the dough lightly into a smooth, round shape, gently tucking loose ends underneath.

Drizzle 1 tsp olive oil into the bowl, and turn dough over in the bowl several times to coat surface thinly with oil. Cover bowl with aluminum foil. Let dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 2 hours.

Transfer to a floured work surface and pat to flatten bubbles and form into a slightly rounded rectangle about 5x10 inches and about 1/2 inch thick. Dust dough lightly with flour if needed. Cut dough into 10-12 equal pieces. Form each piece into a round shape, gently tucking ends underneath as before.

Use your hands to gently pat and stretch the dough rounds into flat disc shapes about 1/2 inch thick. Arrange buns about 1/2 inch apart on prepared baking sheet. Dust buns very lightly with flour. Drape a piece of plastic wrap over the baking sheet (do not seal tightly). Let buns rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Beat 1 egg with 1TB milk in a small bowl until mixture is thoroughly combined. Very lightly brush tops of buns with egg wash without deflating the risen dough. Sprinkle each bun with sesame seeds, if desired.

Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned on top, 15 to 17 minutes. Buns will stick together slightly where they touch. Let cool completely, tear the buns apart, and slice in half crosswise to serve.

pdf attached

 

Thanks for the recipe and the site reference, Tony. I get an email from AllRecipes once or twice a week containing maybe half a dozen recipes, and it's not unusual for me to see a recipe that looks so good I'll go to the store that day to get the ingredients and be eating it for dinner that night. I guess there are worse habits to have (I've actually had some of them. )

 

That's funny. I was going to make the same comment about transitioning away from hard-copy cookbooks. When I find an online recipe that I like, I'll copy/paste it into a Word document, make sure the ingredients are listed in the order that they are used in the recipe (for some goofy reason, they aren't sometimes in random order), group the ingredients so the ones for each step of the recipe are together (as I did above in this recipe), and then I read the reviews and modify the recipe to reflect any recommendations I think are worthwhile. This last part is helpful because I've made recipes where it's obvious that the author never made that dish in their lives, because the recipe is so goofed up (this is more common on chef-specific cooking sites than it is on recipe-aggregation sites.)

While I can easily find specific recipes because they are on my computer, I have a bunch that I frequently cook printed out and put in three ring binders. I write notes on those as I try them out, and try to remember to transfer those tweaks back to the Word document.

To tie my rambling (sorta) back in to the top of bun recipes...there aren't a lot of tweaks the reviewers make to baked good like this. The most common change is the quantity that the recipe makes. Folks will sometimes state that the buns are waaaayyyyy too large, and the size should be cut in half. It's good to know ahead of time.

 

Yeh, I have a whole bunch of free ones that I mailed away for I'll never part with: Lee & Perrin's, Betty Crocker, McIlhenny (tabasco sauce), etc. These are nice, hard-bound books.

My favorite is the Lee & Perrin's one, because some of the recipes call for a single obligatory check-the-box drop of Worcestershire sauce. Hey, you gotta fill the book and push the product, even if it is for show...bless their hearts.