Cooking Day 13: Burgers & Brioche Buns

Hello everyone!

I want to start out tonight's blog with a proposition. I know I am not the only one who has been doing a little more in the kitchen than usual since we have been confined to our homes for the last few weeks. I see it every day on my Facebook page. I would like to invite those of you who are interested to be a guest poster. If you know you will be doing something you would like to write about, it doesn't matter if it is breakfast, lunch, dessert, or anything, if you are willing to send me a write-up and pictures, it will be your blog for the night! So bring on your delicious creations and let's show everyone what we can do!

Ok...now for tonight's dinner.

When I told someone I was doing burgers this weekend, I was told, "Ugh...burgers? That is so boring, who wants to see you make burgers?" Well, what I had to tell this hater (lol...you know I love you) was that we were going to make our own brioche buns! We have been wanting to do this for a while and my friend asked us to grill her steaks for dinner so it was the perfect time to grill the Brisket Burgers we bought from the meat market when we bought Wes's lamb and our steaks from Tuesday. 

So we started with a recipe I saved long ago on Pinterest. I don't know how many of you are like me, but sometimes I pin a post without opening it because it looks so good. Well, as I am sure has happened to you (or maybe not) I opened this Brioche bun pin, it was not what I was hoping to see. Suffice it to say, the pin has been deleted and I am soooooooo glad one of the boys was not looking at my pins with me at the time.

So, on went the search and then we found it. This was our first time making hamburger buns, we didn't want to go off on our own too much. So we used this recipe. 

We started out by gathering all our ingredients, yeast, sugar, milk, softened butter flour, sea salt, and an egg. We warmed up the milk and added to it the sugar, yeast, and warm water. That sat for about 10 minutes while it bloomed. Have y'all ever used yeast in your baking before? The smell is just wonderful. The moment it starts blooming you know something good is happening.

While the yeast blooms combine the flour and salt in a bowl (I used my stand mixer) and once it is ready, add the yeast mixture and do a quick stir to combine the wet and dry ingredients. Then use the dough hook to get the dough combined until it is a soft, smooth, ball of dough. Punch down the dough and into the middle of the dough, add the cubed softened butter and knead it for about 5 minutes. When it is done, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm area to let it rise and double for one hour.

Once that hour is up, sprinkle a light layer of flour over the dough and then turn it out onto a clean surface. Form into a disc and cut into eight pieces, like cutting a pizza. Ball up each section and place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet with enough room between each to allow it to rise. Once all balls are formed, brush with egg wash, cover with plastic wrap and allow it to rise again for 50 minutes. We scored them, hoping to have a really pretty finish. You will see how that ends up in the end.

About 20 minutes before the end of the last proof, preheat the oven to 395 degrees. Once the preheat is completed put 1 cup of water in a baking pan on the bottom rack of the oven to create steam in the oven. When the last proof is done, unwrap the pan and bush the egg wash over the buns again. Lower the temp on the oven to 375 degrees and put the buns in the oven. 

Let the buns bake for 15 minutes and then remove the pan of water and let the buns bake 10 more minutes.

Y'all...the smell. Wes wants a candle of this smell. Well...he wants a candle of almost everything we cook. Put them on a cooling rack and then slice in half. So those were the buns. 

Even though the burgers are boring, here is what we did. These were ground brisket burgers from Moody's Meat Market. We bought the last six patties they had. I seasoned them with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper on both sides. Tony took them out to the grill when he took out the steaks for a friend. We topped half with Swiss cheese and the other half with a bleu cheese disk. They were so good. I baked frozen crinkle fries in the oven after tossing them in vegetable oil, Cacio e Pepe seasoning and salt at 425 degrees for 35 minutes and gave them a toss part way though. 

I cannot speak for the guys, but I took my buns and lay down half an avocado on the bottom bun, added crisped bacon lardon to the avocado, placed a patty with bleu cheese on that and topped it with the bun.

Wes and I also had more of the apple bleu cheese salad from Tuesday night. It was still so good and went really well with the burgers. And yes, I poured myself a glass of Pinot Grigio...just another empty bottle to add to my collection! LMAO!

Well, that was our Saturday. Think about my above proposal...let me know if you are interested.