Homemade burger bun...

Lot of people have asked  me, why do I need to make bread at home when they are readily available in stores. My answer is unless you try your hand at it you will never know. First of all, I love baking, though a late starter, I have fallen for it completely. And it gives me an immense pleasure when all the effort comes together and I end up with a perfect well done bread.

And  the second reason, which I feel far  more important that the first one. Just go through the ingredients list of the bread you have bought. I'm sure you will need to Google for a lot of them, as you probably haven't heard of them before. Unfortunately most of them are preservatives to increase the shelf life of the bread.

Like most of the kids  of her age, my daughter loves burgers. Every-time we pass by a burger joint, she feels hungry, even if it's just after the lunch or dinner. So when on Mother's day my little one surprised me with a beautiful ceramic paper weight shaped like a star fish and  a few pretty  looking cards saying "Mom I love you", I promised her the best burger as her treat.

I followed the braided bread or challah bread recipe to make the dough. This dough, can be used for making several different breads, like burger buns, dinner knots, sweet cinnamon rolls etc. Today it was burger buns time.

Things needed to make Homemade Burger:

For the Burger Bun:

• Bread flour: 4 cups and more to dust
• Dry yeast: 2.5 tsp
• Sugar: 1/2 tsp
• Water (warm): 1 cup
• Salt: 1/2 tbsp
• Honey: 1/4 cup
• Eggs: 2
• Butter or olive oil: 1/3 cup
• Egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tbsp water
• Sesame seeds to sprinkle (optional)

Steps of making the Burger Buns:

1. Proof the yeast: Take the yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, sugar in a deep bowl, mix well. Cover and let the yeast stand at room temperature until foamy (about 10 min). The water should be just warm to touch, not hot.

2. In a large, deep mixing bowl add 1 cup bread flour, eggs, honey, butter (or oil, whichever you are using, I used butter), and rest of the water, mix well with a dough whisk (a ladle also works good) till no lumps.

Add the yeast and mix well. Add the remaining bread flour 1/2 cup at a time, until a soft dough is formed that pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl.  As I do not have a stand mixer, I used my hand to make the dough. You can use a heavy duty stand mixer like Kitchen Aid, in that case use the paddle attachment.

3. Lightly flour the kitchen counter or any work surface ( I used a large wooden chopping board), turn the dough on the floured work surface. Knead the dough, stretch it, fold it, turn it 90 degree and repeat. Knead for 7-8 min by hand. Keep dusting the work surface with flour to prevent the dough from sticking to hand and to the work surface.

4. Grease a large and deep container, place the dough and turn once to grease the top. Cover the container and let the dough rise at room temperature until double is size, about 2 hrs. Punch down the dough and cover the container and let the dough rise again for 1 hr. If you are in hurry you can skip the second rise, but for a better flavor let the dough rise for the second time.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take out the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal halves.

6. Divide each half into 6 equal portions. Make balls from each portions. Roll the dough with cupped hand until smooth and perfectly round. Place the shaped dough on the baking sheet, with smooth side up. Repeat the same for other portions of the dough and place them at least 2 inches apart from each other. Flatten each dough with the palm. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 20-25 min at room temperature. Halfway through the rising press the dough balls very gently to flatten a bit.

7. As the shaped dough are rising, place the oven rack to the center position and preheat oven to 350 F. The oven should be preheated at-least 20 min before baking. Mix the egg and water for egg wash.

8. Brush the rolls with egg wash with a pastry brush and sprinkle sesame seeds. You can skip the sesame seed part.

9. Bake in the preheated oven, in the center rack for 18-20 min or until golden brown in color and firm to touch. Transfer to cooling rack.

I used only half of the dough to make 6 buns. With the rest of the dough I made few dinner knots and mini challahs. The dough recipe is same, but you can make various other breads from this dough.

For the Patty:

• Minced meat of your choice: 1 lb/ 425 gm
• Onion (finely chopped): 2 tbsp
• Garlic powder: 1/4 tsp
• Dried parsley: 1/2 tbsp
• Worcestershire sauce: 1 tbsp
• Smoked Tabasco sauce: 1 tbsp
• Egg: 1
• Bread crumbs: 1-2 tbsp
• Freshly ground black pepper: 1 tsp
• Salt to taste

For making the patty you can use any minced meat of your choice. Even vegetarian options like falafel, or minced soy-granule patty or mixed veggie patty are also good. You can make the burger patty as per your choice. This time I used minced chicken and following is how I did it.

Steps for making the Patty:

1. Mix minced meat, finely chopped onion, garlic powder (or minced garlic), dried parsley, Worcestershire sauce, smoked Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper well. I used smoked Tabasco to bring the smoky flavor as well as increase the spicy level, you can use liquid smoke and chili powder instead. Liquid smoke is readily available in shops like Walmart or Target. For kids, you can avoid chili powder. I added frozen corns and grated carrot to the kid version patty I made for my daughter. An easy way to add some veggies to your kids diet.

2. Now shape the patty into round disks around a diameter of 3 inches or the size to match your burger buns. To shape the meat patty quickly and easily I found out something very simple. We always have different sized lids of jars in our kitchen. Take any lid that matches to the size of burger bun.

3. Line the lid with plastic wrap.

4. Drop the patty mix on the lid.

5. With the help of spoon level the mix and spread it on the lid. Press a little so it takes the shape of the lid.

6. Take a piece of parchment paper, and holding the plastic wrap flip the meat mix to parchment paper, voila you have a perfect round patty ready to cook.

You can grill the patty on an outdoor grill or just shallow fry them on a pan, like I did.

So we are ready with the bun and patty, now the burger needs to be assembled.

To assemble the burger: (these are few suggestions)

• Mayonnaise
• Mustard sauce
• Tomato slices
• Lettuce
• Guacamole
• Onion
• Pickled jalapeno
• Bacon
• Cheese slices
• Grilled mushrooms or bell peppers

 Etc & etc....

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