Juicy, rare hamburgers require a solid, hefty bun
Ever make hamburger buns at home? No? Last week I made some; here's my story.
I didn't feel an urge to make homemade hamburger buns before now since I have a couple of bakery sources for decent buns. Those were good; not organic, though.
I'll admit it right up front: I'm a bun snob; wanting my hamburger buns to be substantial, not light and fluffy. Mass-produced fluffy buns don't hold up well to my homemade burgers.
The reason: I cook my burgers on the rare side of medium-rare, and I use 85/15 grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef. My hamburgers exude juice and quickly turn a fluffy bun into a mushy mess in short order.
Thinking it would be fun, I decided to make my own organic hamburger buns. When I need to find a solid, homemade bread recipe, I head to the bread and baking know-it-alls at King Arthur Flour's website (kingarthurflour.com).
King Arthur didn't have just one hamburger bun recipe. There were a bunch. I picked the recipe with a five-star rating from 810 people who'd made it. It looked easy, too, with just seven ingredients; all of which were already in my pantry and refrigerator.
King Arthur's recipe didn't require the standard process for yeast; mixing with warm water and some sugar. No. Simply add all the ingredients, including the yeast, to a mixing bowl, mix until it results in a soft and smooth dough.
Next, I transferred the dough from the bowl to my floured kitchen counter for a little kneading and forming. Before I transferred the dough to a buttered glass bowl, I weighed the empty bowl and noted its weight. Then I put the dough into the bowl so it could rise and double in size.
King Arthur's recipe requires a 1- to 2-hour rise. After an hour or, so it looked good so I punched it down and then placed the bowl on the scale again. By subtracting the bowl's weight, I found that my dough weighed 36 ounces.
Then I weighed-out 10 pieces of dough each weighing 3.6 ounces. I formed each into a round ball and placed them on a lightly buttered, half-sheet pan; flattening each ball into 3-inch rounds. Then I covered them with an inverted second pan and let them rise for an hour.
My buns didn't rise quite as much as I thought they should and came to learn later that I hadn't been sufficiently careful and detailed when I read the recipe. King Arthur liked “instant” yeast. I'd used the “active dry” yeast I had in my refrigerator.
Instant yeast doesn't require mixing and proofing in warm water as “active dry” yeast does. “Instant” yeast can be mixed with all the ingredients without any proofing.
I learned two things. First, read the recipe and follow it exactly. If I had seen it, I would have used “instant” yeast called for in the ingredient list.
And, the first rise could have been even higher, and I should have let it go for nearly two hours instead of one. The final buns looked a little less puffed-up than I thought they should and I believe that was also due to not using the “instant” yeast.
How did my burger-boy buns turn out? Really, really good, even without the “instant” yeast and longer rise time. Give them a try.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.