I had planned on making some potato buns for burgers but after flicking through Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot's book Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work (their blog is blog.ideasinfood.com), I came across their No Knead Brioche recipe and knew I had to make brioche burger buns for the ultimate extravagant burger. The no knead brioche is pretty simple, it just takes a bit of time.
Over a low heat melt 226 grams of unsalted butter, once melted set aside to cool.
In a bowl whisk together 50 grams of sugar, 10 grams of fine sea salt, 1.5 grams of instant yeast, and 488 grams of flour.
In another bowl whisk 4 large eggs (a large egg is between 63-73 grams), 113 grams of water, 65 grams of milk, when combined whisk in the melted butter.
Using a wooden spoon or spatula, beat the wet mixture in to the dry until smooth and free of lumps, it should resemble thick muffin batter.
Cover and leave at room temperature for about 4 hours.
After resting for 4 hours, dampen your hands, use a spatula and fingers to fold one side into the middle and press down, turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat, do this twice more so each side has been folded in. Turn the whole batter over, so the seam is on the bottom. Cover with cling film and leave it to rest for 8-12 hours, it should have doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 175°C (with fan). With damp hands shape the batter into buns and brush with milk (I should have made some rings from tin foil to stop the dough spreading). Cook for 30 minutes, the buns should sound hollow when tapped on the underside. Alternatively you could put the dough into a loaf pan and cook for 1 hour.
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.
A Buttery and delicate crumb, makes a killer burger bun, but it's very rich so smaller portions are probably the order of the day.
