Soft butter buns: golden and pillowy, for burgers and breakfast
Eight buns from a milk dough with butter and egg, soft as cotton wool and faintly sweet, with a glossy top. Perfect for a burger because they don't crumble and hold the sauce, and for breakfast with butter and jam. The dough is loose and sticky, so it is kneaded longer and the butter goes in last. No steam, no baking stone, an ordinary tray.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Kneading 25 min
- Rising 60 min
- Shaping 15 min
- Rising 45 min
- Baking 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneKnead the dough, butter last
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk with a spoon of sugar and leave 10 minutes, until frothy. Pour the yeast milk and the egg into the flour with the remaining sugar and salt; knead with dough hooks 8 minutes, until smooth. Only now add the soft butter a piece at a time and knead another 5 minutes. The dough is soft, slightly sticky and shiny; don't add flour.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 250 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 40 g sugar · 1 pcs egg · 60 g butter · 1½ tsp salt
TipButter added at the start coats the flour and holds back the gluten: the dough takes longer to knead and the buns easily come out dense. Added to a kneaded dough it works into the finished network and gives a tender, fluffy crumb.
Smooth first, then butter piece by pieceFirst rise
Shape the dough into a ball, put it in an oiled bowl, cover and leave 60 minutes somewhere warm, until doubled.
Doubled, a smooth domeDivide and round
Knock back and divide into 8 pieces of about 115 g, on a scale. Round each into a taut ball: fold the edges to the centre, turn over and roll under a cupped hand until the skin tightens.
Eight balls of 115 g, tautFlatten and prove
Set the balls on a large lined tray about 4 cm apart (rows of 3–2–3 work best) and gently press each with your palm into a 9 cm disc; without this they rise into spheres, not burger buns. Cover and leave 45 minutes, until puffy and grown by half. Meanwhile heat the oven to 190 °C.
TipThe readiness test: press with a finger. A dent that springs back slowly and not quite fully means bake now. Springs back at once: 10 more minutes.
Flattened to 9 cm, rising 45 minutesEgg wash
Beat the egg with a spoon of milk and gently brush the tops, without letting it run onto the tray. Sprinkle with sesame if you like.
Ingredients: 1 pcs egg · 1 tbsp milk · 2 tbsp sesame seeds
Egg with milk, sesameBake
Bake 14–16 minutes at 190 °C on the middle shelf, until the tops are deep golden and glossy. The buns may touch slightly: that is normal, they pull apart once cool.
Deep golden after a quarter of an hourCool and use
Cool on a rack 20 minutes. For a burger, split and toast cut side down in a dry pan for a minute. For breakfast, butter and jam. Best the same day; frozen and refreshed 5 minutes at 180 °C they are as good as new.
Toasted for a burger, jam for breakfast
Before you start
Sweeter, for tea-time buns
80 g sugar and 80 g butter instead of 40 and 60, plus vanilla sugar: dessert buns like from a bakery.
Hot dog rolls
Roll the same balls into 14 cm logs and set them 2 cm apart so they rise into a row. Pull apart after baking.
Dense, heavy buns
Butter added too early, too much extra flour, or too short a second rise. The dough should be sticky and the buns puffy before they go in.
