The best burger bun

The best burger bun

The argument over the best burger bun could go on forever, we see brioche everywhere these days though I find many far too sweet and better suited to a bread and butter pudding than a burger bun, we have the sesame seed buns, the bog-standard store-bought white buns that turn to mush and fall apart as soon as a burger touches them. A few years back when I did a charity BBQ I was lucky to have all the bread donated by world champion baker Alex Gooch, among the bread types were potato rolls for the burgers that I would be doing at the BBQ, they were also used for the pulled pork and beef.

These are my take on those rolls, I experimented and made a few different variations but these proved to be the best burger buns.

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour
200g mashed potato
10g yeast
10g sea salt
20g sugar
2 eggs (one for glaze)
100g butter
150ml of warm milk

Instructions

Make the mashed potato, use a potato ricer to get the smoothest possible mashed potato.

In a large mixing bowl add the flour, 175g of your mashed potato, the yeast and warm water, milk, one egg and your salt. Start mixing together and add the softened butter.

If you have a stand mixer knead using the dough hook on slow speed for around 8 minutes, of course, you can knead by hand a perfect arm workout and releases any frustration you have.

Once kneaded set aside in a covered bowl for roughly one hour or doubled in size.

After proving knock back your dough and divide into 8 even-sized rolls, if you have OCD or are just anal about them being the same size weigh them out to get them all the same size. Roll and place on a parchment-lined baking tray cover and do a second proving of around 45 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 200c, 400f or gas mark 6. In the base of your oven add an ovenproof bowl or tray and add cold water or ice cubes, this forms the steam that commercial ovens have to create the perfect crust on your bread. Place the buns in the centre of the preheated oven. After fifteen minutes using the egg, you kept for glaze and a tablespoon of milk, beat the egg and add the milk to create an egg wash, remove the buns from the oven and brush over the egg wash mix, return to the oven for a further 12-15 minutes until the buns are golden brown on top.