Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Back to Blog Main Page

Burger Buns

Posted June 14, 2010
Find more about buns , bread , hamburgers
13  | 
I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

*drool*

I tend to mix all the liquid ingredients right in my ginormous measuring cup.

Here's the dough before rising. As with the bread recipe from earlier this year, it's not the most promising-seeming dough.

But it rises very obediently.

I kind of portion it out with a knife to make sizing the buns a bit easier.

I tried to take a picture of my own hands shaping the dough. Aren't I kind of a tragi-comic figure? Can nobody help me? Nobody can help me.

The brushing of the milk.

The sprinkling of the seeds.

Pride and Joy I.

Pride and Joy II.

Burger in progress.

And again, thanks to Mr. Fancy.

Oh, did you want to see a close-up of the napkin Ben embroidered? Why certainly. It's a pattern from the book Cute Stuff, and it's kind of heartbreakingly cute. Don't say I didn't warn you.

My very beloved father-in-law (father-outlaw?) recently cracked me up about hot dogs. We'd been debating getting some from a street stand after a long and beautiful walk--only the stand guy explained that there'd been some kind of a "hot-dog malfunction." "There might be some ready in five minutes," he said, and we said, "Oh, never mind, that's okay," because, really. What exactly is a hot-dog malfunction? I pictured, for instance, all the various times a swimming pool had been evacuated, and I said to Grandpa Larry, "A hot dog is kind of barely functioning as it is." Which is when he explained, maybe quoting Anthony Bourdain, that a hot dog is always an implied-consent situation. "It's gross and made of gross stuff, and that's really just the whole premise of a hot dog," he said, and I agreed. I'm not going to eat one every day, and I'm not going to imagine living longer and with clearer skin and tighter abs because of it. But a hot dog yoinked from a boiling trough, slathered with brown mustard and dripping sauerkraut into a damp and disintegrating white bun? Walk me past a Sabrett stand or take me to a ball game, and I'm all over it.

Which is not at all how I feel about hamburgers. And maybe that's because I'm a hypocrite. Or because hamburgers have kind of e.-coli-ed their way out of our forgiving hearts in recent years. Or because we have meatier expectations when it comes to burgers. But I've gotten picky about my burgers and picky about my buns. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I hate buying hamburger buns because they're either wheaty and fine and jaw-droppingly expensive at Whole Foods, or they're cheap and white and as intuitively edible as a flip-flop. ("Is this really something you're supposed to eat?" Ben once said, rolling a fistful of bun into a bright white ball the size of a Tic Tac.) Also, the strange flavor grosses me out--the way they seem to soak up all the off-gassed fumes from the detergents and air fresheners that are seven aisles over. Do you know what I'm talking about? No? Maybe it's just me.

But it doesn't even matter, because it's fun to make buns however you feel about the boughten ones: homemade hamburger buns are delicious and inexpensive and deeply satisfying to make. Plus, they're gorgeous and show-offy and as nutritious as the flours you choose to use. You won't be surprised to hear that I use a great deal of whole wheat, and the buns that result are full-flavored and sturdy--more than a mere vehicle for transporting your burger mouthwards. You also won't be surprised to hear that I use the no-knead method, here adapted from the recipe for "Soft American-Style White Bread" in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Except, of course, it's not white. And it's buns. And I know you'll be mad if I say these are easy. Which is why I'm not saying it.

p.s. The embroidery pattern is in this book, which is so brimful of the eponymous "cute stuff" that my kids said, "Oooh, can we make that?" about nearly every single thing.

Burger Buns
Makes 15 buns
Active time: 20 minutes; total time, including resting and refrigeration: 4 (plus) hours

Figure out what works for you, flour-wise. I want to say start with all white and then add in whole-grain little by little, but I honestly find it harder to go that direction, as one's family (and self) can become quite attached to the earlier squishy versions. I started with half and half and got gradually wheatier and this is, for us, a perfect balance of soft and wholesomely flavorful. I usually make the buns for beef hamburgers, which I always serve with chipotle mayo, but what's pictured here are the absolutely fabulous Bulgur Veggie Burgers with Lime Mayonnaise that I made for a vegetarian friend; they were as good as any burgers I have ever eaten.

3 cups warm water

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast (2 packages)

1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons kosher salt, depending on your saltiness preference (or half as much table salt)

2 tablespoons sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted
7 cups flour (I use 3 cups white, 3 1/2 cups whole wheat, and 1/4 cup each ground flax and wheat germ.)
Milk
Sesame seeds

Pour the water into a large bowl, then sprinkle in the yeast, salt, and sugar, then stir in the butter and flour, mixing with a wooden spoon until there are no dry patches. The dough will be shaggy and sticky and this is fine. Cover it with plastic wrap or a shower cap and let it rest and rise at a warm room temperature for at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours, then--if you can--refrigerate it for an hour or longer before using it. You can shape the buns right away if you must, but even a brief chilling makes it so much easier, I find.

Cover two large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

At this point, I sprinkle the dough with flour and then take a knife to it and mark it into 14 or 15 pieces, just so I have a rough guide as I'm grabbing the dough to shape buns. Pull each piece of dough out and shape it into a little bun by rotating it in your hands to stretch its surface, pulling it under to create a taut, rounded top and a gathered-up bottom (imagine that you're giving the dough a firming face lift and tucking all that baggy, extra skin underneath, only in miniature, if you've already made the full loaves). You will want to do this kind of quickly, keeping your fingers moving lightly over the surface of the dough, rather than plunging them inside, where they will stick. If your hands get doughy, stop what you're doing, wash and dry them, re-flour the dough, and try again. As you shape each bun, place it on a prepared cookie sheet.

When all the buns are made, cover them with a dish towel or two, and leave them to rest until they are no longer cold to the touch--15 minutes or so if the dough was only briefly refrigerated, and a half hour if it is was colder for longer.

Heat the oven to 425. Brush the rested buns with milk, sprinkle them with sesame seeds, and bake in the oven for 20-35 minutes, rotating the pans top to bottom and back to front after about 15. The buns should be deeply golden on top, brown on the bottom, and hollow-sounding when you tap them. Remove them to a baking rack, at which point I cover them again with a dishtowel to keep the surface from getting too crusty as they cool.

Leftover cooled buns can be frozen in Ziploc freezer bags for up to a month, and they're still very good.

Get a printable version of this recipe.


 

Member Comments On...

Burger Buns

Back to Main Blog Page
Search Recipes
300x250

About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

View My Profile View My Guestbook
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
August 2006
300x250
728x90
Please log in ...
Close
You must be logged in to use this feature.
Become a member

Thank You!

Thank you for helping us maintain a friendly, high quality community at Family.com. This comment will be reviewed by a community moderator.

Flag as Not Acceptable?

We review flagged content and enforce our Terms of Use, in which content must never be:

See full Terms of Use.