We bought some chicken Buffalo style sliders the other day so I wanted to make some tasty buns to go with them. The buns needed to be hearty enough to hold the burgers and the fixings as well as soft enough like a hamburger bun needs to be.
I adapted a recipe from KAF and made several changes including the flour types and changes and additions in several ingredients. I added some dried onions and some Parmesan powder to give it a little extra flavor and just enough honey to round out the flavor profile.
These would have been perfect had I not left them in the oven a few minutes too long since I was working at the same time I was baking these. One of the benefits of working from home but also one of the possible pitfalls. In any case these tasted great and made perfect burger buns and sandwich rolls as well. If you try these you will not be disappointed, of that I can guarantee you.
The European style flour I used has a small percentage of white whole wheat flour and malt which along with the Spelt flour and Durum flour really gave these rolls some excellent flavor.
Directions
Bring the milk up to a boil in a heavy-duty sauce pan and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature before using.
In the mean time leave your butter out at room temperature or soften in your microwave.
Mix flours with yeast to combine. Next add remainder of the ingredients and mix on low for 1 minute and then for 9 minutes at speed number 2 and 1 minute at speed number 3. You want to mix/knead until you develop a nice thin window pane which will ensure that the rolls end up nice and soft.
Take the dough out of your mixer and form it into a ball and place in a well oiled bowl or dough rising bucket. Make sure to cover the dough and let it rise at room temperature of if you have a proofer set it to 82 degrees and let it rise until doubled. It took me about 1 hour to double in my proofer.
Next gently deflate the dough and form into rolls and place on cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cover with a moist towel or plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray. Let it sit at room temperature for about 1 hour until the rolls have almost doubled in size and pass the poke test.
Around 30 minutes before ready to bake the rolls, pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees and prepare your oven for steam as well. I use a heavy-duty pan in the bottom shelf of my oven and pour 1 cup of boiling water in right before placing the rolls in the oven.
Right before you are ready to bake the rolls prepare an egg wash, paint your rolls and add your topping of choice.
Bake the rolls at 450 degrees for the first 5 minutes and lower the oven to 425 degrees until they are nice and brown. Just make sure that they don’t turn into charcoal like mine almost did :).
These should take about 25 minutes to cook thoroughly. When done let them cool on wire rack for at least half an hour before digging in if you can wait that long.
This post has been submitted to the Yeast Spotting Site here: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/.
Cleopatra didn’t mind the “dark” rolls at all….
mookielovesbread 
what is the flour protein of the european flour?
Hi and thanks for your comment. It is a 11.7% protein flour from King Arthur Flour. It is a real nice flour and I use it instead of AP all the time.
Ah thx! I was just checking seeing that I live in Europe and know that American flour different 🙂
I’m sure you can use some good bread flour and you will be fine. you could add in a touch of white whole wheat if desired.
Dear Nutty Professor,
Why does your cat love bread?