No Knead Brioche Hamburger Buns

I've always been curious about brioche hamburger buns. The idea of serving a juicy hamburger in a rich and buttery bun sounds totally decadent.

Brioche is a highly enriched dough, loaded with butter and eggs. I've had my successes and failures making it, sometimes ending up with light ethereal bread, and sometimes ending up with heavy, greasy tasting hockey pucks.

My absolute favorite brioche is this one with olive oil. It's incredible, however, it involves about 20 minutes of kneading at a very high speed with your mixer. The final loaves are light as air.

I haven't posted my brioche failures, but I've had a couple. Fortunately, you can always make French toast or bread pudding with it. No one will ever know.

Truth be told, I'm usually perfectly happy with a hamburger sandwiched between slices of sourdough toast. Still, I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about.

I love the convenience of no knead dough, but I was a bit skeptical about how it would work with brioche. No knead dough requires an overnight rise, and in the case of this dough, a long stint in the fridge.

The dough is very sticky, and really doesn't rise much throughout the entire two to three day process. Resist the urge to add more flour, even if your hands are coated with sticky dough. Otherwise, you will end up with a heavier, more cake-like bread.

Final verdict? This is a very tasty bread. The rolls are just wonderful toasted and spread with jam.

If I want an exceptionally light and luxurious brioche, I'd probably go with the olive oil version, but if I want something easy and still airy, this recipe is very nice. I also have a cheesy burger bun recipe where cheese is actually baked into the bun! 

How are these as hamburger buns? Pretty darn good. You need to try these at least once.

I toasted the buns on the grill. 

P.S. My burger of choice is dressed with yellow mustard, chipotle ketchup, lots and lots of pickles, melted blue cheese, and red onions.... and occasionally bacon. 

How about you? I would love to know how you dress up a burger!

No Knead Brioche Hamburger Buns

Makes 6 buns

Ingredients

2 large eggs (about 110 grams)

50 grams honey

70 grams water

1 tsp salt

100 grams melted and cooled unsalted butter

250 grams all purpose flour

1 tsp instant yeast (I used SAF Gold, which is good for enriched dough. Red Star Platinum would be good too)

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, honey, water, salt and melted butter together. 
2. Whisk the flour and yeast together and sift it into the egg and butter mixture. 
3. Whisk (I love using a Danish dough whisk for this) the ingredients together for about 30 seconds to a minute. The dough should look fairly smooth. 
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for about 2 hours. 
5. Remove the dough from the bowl and do a couple of "stretch and folds" from all four sides until the dough resists. 
6. Place the dough back into the bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate the dough for 24 to 48 hours. 
7. When you are ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it into 6 equal pieces. 
8. Line a quarter sheet pan with parchment paper. 
9. Shape the pieces into balls, and then flatten the balls by pressing down on them with you hand. Place the disks on the parchment paper and cover with oiled plastic wrap. Let the rolls proof for 2 to three hours, depending on the temperature of the room. 
10. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Brush the rolls with an egg wash (beaten egg and water) and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F and bake for another 10 minutes, until the rolls are golden brown. 
11. Cool the rolls on a wire rack. 
12. Store in an airtight container. 

This recipe has been adapted from The Weekend Bakery. This year, the Avid Bakers Challenge bakers, hosted by Hanaa's Kitchen, are baking a recipe every month from this site.