I knew I would have to get back to burgers at some point after the initial try. The time has come.

Wiedziałem, że będę musiał wrócić kiedyś do burgerów po pierwszej próbie. Czas nadszedł.

I haven’t given a good review to the recipe by Piotr Kucharski (sources) a year ago. Those buns were horrible, but something was just not right in there. I have done other recipes from his book and they were at least good, so this one felt not right.

I have given the recipe a thorough read and noticed two things:

1. The author is usually using fresh yeast. 20 grams of dried yeast is an insane amount for 450 grams of flour
2. The recipe has an error in it and when you read it quickly you may miss one thing – it says not to add sesame or egg whites to the first knead, whereas there should also be butter in there. Adding the butter straight away means the proteins will get surrounded with it and will not form gluten bindings – you’ll make a short pastry

I decided to fix this and try again. Instead of editing the recipe over there, I decided to remove it and fix it here.

Burger with rocket, red onion chutney, cheddar and bacon

Planning

You need about four-five hours from start to taking out of the oven: 30-60 minutes for the levain, two-three hours for bulk rise, half an hour for final rise and 10-15 minutes for baking.

Ingredients

We have made eight buns out of it

Levain

• 20 g fresh yeast
• 100 g strong white wheat flour
• 100 g warm milk
• 2 tablespoons sugar

Dough

• Levain

• 350 g plain white wheat flour

• 100 g double cream (I used single and it worked well)

• 3 egg yolks

• 5 g salt

• 30-50 g milk/water (this is my suggestion and isn’t listed in the original recipe)

• 80 g soft unsalted butter

• egg white (for coating)

• a handful of sesame seeds (for sprinkling)

  

  A bun with rocket, red onion chutney, fired egg and cheddar

Preparation

1. Dissolve crumbled yeast in the sugar, then add milk and mix it well. Next add flour and combine it all together. Leave for 30-60 minutes

2. Add the rest of ingredients apart from the egg white, the sesame and butter, and mix them. In the mixer I used lower speed for 2-3 minutes and then higher for another 2-3 minutes. Next, add butter gradually while mixing until in fully dissolves in the dough
   By hand, knead the dough without the butter first until it starts coming off your hands, than flatten it, put the butter in the centre and fold the dough over it. Next keep kneading and folding until you get a uniform dough

3. Leave for 2-3 hours to rise. It may more than double in volume, it’s not a problem

4. In the original version, the dough was divided into 8 portions, a 100 g each, previously I did 30-35 g portions and got 25 buns 4-5 cm in diameter. Round the buns, flatten really well (1-1.5 cm thickness for the big ones, even less for the mini ones). Line them up on a baking tray. Make sure you get some flour on the base so that they don’t stick. Leave for 30 minutes for a final rise

   

   Buns shaped and flattened

5. Just before baking flatten them once again, brush the top of the buns with egg white and sprinkle with sesame

6. Bake in 220 C for 10-15 minutes (the small ones need 10 minutes or so). I baked with a fan and some steam. Know your oven

7. Let them cool for 15-20 minutes

8. I recommend toasting the insides of the buns before preparing the burger

   

   Quick count

Summary

The result is definitely better than the first one and I’m not surprised as I knew I had made mistakes. The buns are rather soft, they are tasty. The flattening gives them a handy shape.

A bun with red onion chutney, fried choriso, rocket and cheddar

This improves my opinion about the book and the recipe, but it still isn’t the perfect burger bun. I will be looking for one and you will know once I find it.